China Passes U.S. In Web Population

With 253 million citizens online, China now has a larger population on the Web than any other country.

It was bound to happen when a country with 1.3 billion people starting wiring up: China has officially become the most population online nation, surpassing the United States for total users. According to information released by the Chinese government on Friday, the nation now hosts 253 million surfers.

The country’s Internet usage has been surging upward in recent years as more and more Chinese plug in, despite strict government restrictions on the content they can access. The latest number represents a 56 percent increase from just a year ago.

Internet penetration – the amount of the total population served by the Web – remains low in the country, though. Only 19.1 percent of the Chinese population has Internet access, compared to the U.S., where the Pew Internet and American Life Project pegs penetration at 71 percent, or Greenland, which reportedly boasts 92.3 percent penetration.

While that may be bad news for the vast majority without access, it leaves China plenty of room for expansion as the world’s new online population leader, and the country’s growth in surfers will likely not stop any time soon.