Another map, from Nature (in 2006, so slightly outdated), provides a good point of comparison. This map shows countries by their population size, visually portraying the data that the shading in the first map is based on:

China, of course, dominates both. But what is interesting in comparing the two is how outsized Europe and South Korea are in the Internet population map, captured in their darker shading. In fact, all but four of the countries with more than 80 percent of their populations online are in Europe: South Korea, New Zealand, Qatar, and Canada. Together with much of Europe, these are the parts of the world that have gotten the vast majorities of their people online the fastest.

Mark Graham and Stefano De Sabbata, the creators of the top map (and also of the “Internet Empires” map from last week), highlight two additional trends:

First, the rise of Asia as the main contributor to the world’s Internet population; 42% of the world’s Internet users live in Asia, and China, India, and Japan alone host more Internet users than Europe and North America combined. Second, few of the world’s largest Internet countries fall into the top category (>80%) of Internet penetration (and indeed India falls into the lowest category, at <20% penetration). In other words, in all of the world’s largest Internet nations, there is still substantial room for growth.

They also note that although many African countries appear relatively very small on the Internet penetration map, many of these countries have experienced the fastest growth since their last such map, from 2008, when they didn't even appear:

Graham and De Sabbata write:

In the last three years, almost all North African countries doubled their population of Internet users (Algeria being a notable exception). Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, also saw massive growth. However, it remains that over half of Sub-Saharan African countries have an Internet penetration of less than 10%, and have seen very little grow in recent years.

The portrait of the world that the map depicts is one of very uneven access to the Internet, with the vast majority of people disconnected from this global network. Bear in mind, the authors say, that overall "only one third of the world’s population has access to the Internet."