Why do nearby servers take longer to send a request?

Question

Computer networks

There is a task to find a VPS from which the request should reach the destination server faster than others. Previously, I thought that the closer the servers are located to each other, the faster the request will reach the endpoint. At the same time, I learned about traceroute and began to understand that this is not so, or I do not fully understand the command itself. As a result, it turned out that the server from city A (which is located nearby, say 200 km) can be "slower" and its request takes longer than from server B (which is located 1000 km from the destination server). At the same time, the configuration of the servers is the same, as is the bandwidth. What is the catch and how to find the fastest server?

Answer 1

The difference in routing, namely:
The number of hops (intermediate devices through which the packet passes)
The type of devices that act as routers (their performance, their workload)
The type of physical network between the hops (optical is faster than twisted pair, twisted pair is faster than coax , coax is faster than radio ethernet, radio ethernet can be faster than satellite, and so on).
In ping speed and connection reliability - in tcp you need to receive confirmation of receipt of the packet, or send a request to repeat, and so on for all packets. Packets can take different routes, with different delays.
Therefore, closely located servers are one data center, where everything is in the local network.
And between two neighboring buildings there may already be a starlink.