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The largest stadiums in the world

By Amelia Foster · published 28 October 2026 · data as of 28 October 2026

Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, India, is the largest of the 2,233 stadiums on this site, with a recorded capacity of 132,000. Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in Pyongyang follows with 113,281 and Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor with 107,600. Only 11 stadiums reach 100,000, and eight of the ten largest are in the United States.

The ranking uses the capacity given in each stadium's Wikipedia article on 28 October 2026. Where an article lists a reduced figure during building work, that figure is the one ranked, and the expected one is mentioned on the stadium's page. That is why Camp Nou sits 136th here: its article gives 62,652 as the current figure and 105,000 as the expected capacity.

The top fifty

A stadium needs 76,416 places to make the top fifty. Of those fifty, 23 are in the United States, and the eight American stadiums in the top ten are all listed for American football. The two exceptions in the top ten are the cricket ground in Ahmedabad and the Rungrado stadium in North Korea, which is listed for football and athletics. Melbourne Cricket Ground is the first stadium outside the United States and Asia, in 11th place with 100,024.

The largest on each continent

Every continent has at least one stadium above 70,000. Asia holds the first two places on the site. North America's leaders are the American football stadiums named above. In Oceania the Melbourne Cricket Ground is 17,024 places clear of Stadium Australia in Sydney. Africa's two largest, in Johannesburg and Egypt's New Administrative Capital, are within 800 places of each other. Europe's largest is Wembley Stadium at 90,000, and South America's is Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires.

Most stadiums are much smaller

Big stadiums are the exception. Half of the 2,233 listed stadiums hold fewer than 24,264 people, and the largest group, 852 stadiums, sits between 10,000 and 19,999. Above 60,000 there are 190 stadiums, and above 80,000 only 43.

Between 40,000 and 59,999 there are 343 stadiums, about one in 7 of the total; between 70,000 and 99,999 there are 68.

How old the giants are

The fifty largest stadiums span almost two centuries. Their median opening year is 1958, 23 of them opened before 1950 and 13 in 2000 or later. The earliest is the Melbourne Cricket Ground (1853); the most recent is New Administrative Capital Stadium (2024). Many of the American stadiums in the list opened in the 1920s, when 11 of the 23 American entries in the top fifty first opened.

Which sports fill the largest stadiums

Within the top fifty, 30 stadiums are listed for American football, 26 for football, 17 for athletics and 4 for rugby union; cricket appears 2 times. A stadium can be listed for more than one sport, so these counts overlap.

The gap between neighbours in the ranking is small near the top: the eight American stadiums between 100,000 and 107,600 are separated by fewer than 7,524 places in all, while the step from Narendra Modi Stadium to Rungrado 1st of May Stadium alone is 18,719 places.

Twenty nations have at least one listed stadium of 80,000 or more: Argentina, Australia, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, North Korea, Peru, Qatar, Russia, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. For every one of them, the nation page lists all of its stadiums from the largest down, and the finder set to 80,000 and above shows the same group in one table.

What the figure means

A recorded capacity is the number of people a stadium is said to hold. It can mix seated and standing places, and some articles give a figure for one sport and another for a different layout; the first current figure is used. It is not a safety limit for a particular event. Where the article gives context for its figure, such as a renovation in progress or an expected capacity, the stadium's own page repeats that context. For any of these stadiums, the stadium finder shows its neighbours by size, and a stadium's own page shows where it ranks in its nation.

Source: capacity figures in the English Wikipedia articles of each stadium, read on 28 October 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How we count.