September 29, 1999 Web posted at: 11:02 a.m. EDT (1502 GMT) by Dan Caterinicchia

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(IDG) -- Washington, D.C. is the most Internet-accessible city in the nation, according to a recently released study from Ohio State University.

The nation's capital has more Internet connections than any other city, the study found. The city also is one of the nation's four network-access points (NAPs), in which Internet service providers (ISPs) link together to exchange data, according to the study.

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Being an NAP generally provides a city's residents with quicker access to Internet resources. Chicago, San Francisco and New York are the other NAPs.

Chicago, Dallas, New York and Atlanta rounded out the top five Internet-connected cities, followed by San Jose, Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco and Phoenix.

Study author Morton O'Kelly said the order of cities may vary over time, but he was not surprised by Washington's top ranking. "The concentration of government, military, research and commercial Internet users in that region...and that it's an NAP [made the number-one ranking] not that surprising to us," said O'Kelly, who is a professor of geography at Ohio State.

"Other things being equal, cities with more linkages to the Internet backbone will have faster access and more reliable connections to global information," the report concluded.

"This enhanced access results in a comparative advantage that will grow in importance with the continuing global computerization if information."

Closing out the top 20 were Boston; Seattle; Philadelphia; St. Louis; Denver; Baltimore; Minneapolis; Palo Alto, Calif.; Detroit and Santa Clara; Calif.