Slashdot posted a link to this "map of the internet" as made by some cartoonist. Actually, the map shows the assignment of IP number blocks to different authorities (ie: I'm in the address block 209, because my IP is 209.139.232.228).

You can see how North America has a few chunks of address blocks allocated to itself. Then there's a huge space allocated to the United States and Canada. Then there's the cable allocation block (24). THEN there's chunks that are allocated to major companies like Apple, IBM, Xerox, DuPont, (etcetera ad infinitum). Huge blocks are allocated to Europe. (Multicast, Loopback, Private, and Local are used for various TCP/IP technical functionality).

Having an IP block gives you control of about 16.6 million "REAL" (static) IP numbers. Considering that the finite number of blocks makes them a valuable commodity, the way in which they're assigned (largely based on how the internet was originally set up years ago) is of interesting note.