South Korea ranked 21st among global peers in terms of the percentage of population with Internet access last year, a United Nations agency for information and communication technologies said Wednesday.

According to a report by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 84.1 percent of South Koreans had access to the Internet in 2012, edging up from 83.8 percent tallied a year earlier. The research was conducted on 211 countries.

Although South Korea ranked 5th in 2004 at 72.7 percent, its ranking has continued to fall as countries with small populations, such as Lichtenstein, Qatar and Bahrain, posted steep rises in the portion of Internet users.

The British Falkland Islands topped the list for the fifth consecutive year at 96.9 percent, trailed by Iceland with 96 percent and Norway with 95 percent.

The United States and Japan held a comparable figure of 81 percent and 79 percent, respectively.

In contrast, Africa's Eritrea held the lowest figure of 0.8 percent, and East Timor and Myanmar were also at the bottom of the list at 0.91 percent and 1.07 percent, respectively. North Korea was excluded from the research.

While 37.4 percent of the world's households had access to the Internet in 2012, the figure among developing countries only came to 24 percent, compared to 74 percent tallied among advanced countries. (Yonhap News)