---
title: Cloudflare traffic not being sent to the geographically closest data
  center · Cloudflare Support docs
description: Due to the way routing on Cloudflare's Anycast network works,
  requests may be sent to data center locations that are not necessarily the
  closest geographically. We are continuously adding capacity to our global
  network and enhancing our automated traffic engineering systems to
  intelligently manage congestion and other network events. While we always
  strive to provide the best possible performance by serving traffic from the
  closest location, our top priority is reliability.
lastUpdated: 2025-09-11T16:02:45.000Z
chatbotDeprioritize: false
source_url:
  html: https://developers.cloudflare.com/support/troubleshooting/general-troubleshooting/geographic-traffic-routing/
  md: https://developers.cloudflare.com/support/troubleshooting/general-troubleshooting/geographic-traffic-routing/index.md
---

Due to the way routing on [Cloudflare's Anycast network](https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cdn/glossary/anycast-network/) works, requests may be sent to data center locations that are not necessarily the closest geographically. We are continuously adding capacity to our global network and enhancing our automated traffic engineering systems to intelligently manage congestion and other network events. While we always strive to provide the best possible performance by serving traffic from the closest location, our top priority is reliability.

In instances where performance and reliability are in conflict, our systems are designed to prioritize a stable connection over a local one.
