IP location is an estimate
An IP address does not contain latitude, longitude, or a street address. Location services infer an area from address registrations, provider data, routing observations, commercial datasets, and previous measurements.
The most reliable result is often the country. Region and city accuracy varies by provider, connection type, and dataset. A displayed city should be read as a network estimate rather than proof that a device is physically there.
Your provider may route traffic elsewhere
Internet providers aggregate customer traffic through regional gateways. A connection can exit the provider network in another city, so external services associate the public address with that hub.
Carrier-grade NAT makes this especially visible on mobile and some residential networks. Many customers share a pool of addresses, and traffic can move between gateways as the carrier manages capacity.
VPNs, proxies, and company networks
A VPN or proxy makes the intermediary's network location visible. A company may route employee traffic through a central office or security service, even when the employee works elsewhere.
Privacy relays and secure web gateways create the same effect intentionally: the destination sees the relay or gateway, not the original local network exit.
Address blocks move faster than databases
Providers acquire, transfer, and reassign IP ranges. A location dataset can continue showing the previous owner or region until its records are refreshed. Different websites use different datasets and update schedules, so they may disagree.
A newly deployed IPv6 range can also have sparse location information. Some systems fall back to the provider's registered address or a national midpoint when more specific evidence is unavailable.
What you can do
Confirm whether a VPN, proxy, private relay, or corporate gateway is active. Compare the result on Wi-Fi and mobile data. Restarting a router may obtain a different dynamic address, but it does not guarantee a better location estimate.
If many services consistently place a provider range incorrectly, the internet provider is best positioned to submit corrections to location vendors. A website using hosting-provided headers cannot safely invent a more precise result.