The World in Stats

Railways and Trains

This page presents statistics about railways and trains, including high-speed rail in operation, construction programmes, railway network length and density, and the fastest scheduled passenger services. It compares the different roles of rail across the world, from China’s expanding high-speed network and Europe’s established passenger connections to the long-distance freight corridors of the Americas. Additional statistics examine national high-speed networks, passenger travel, freight activity and changes in worldwide railway infrastructure. Together, these comparisons explore where railways are most extensive, how they are developing and how their use differs between regions. Each chart identifies the year covered and provides its sources.

  1. High-speed rail in operation by country and world region, 2024
  2. High-speed rail in China and Europe by completion stage, 2024
  3. Rail network length by world region, 2023
  4. Rail network density by world region: comparable 2021 benchmark
  5. Fastest average operating speeds in commercial traffic, 2025 survey
  6. The ten largest operational high-speed rail networks, 2024
  7. Largest high-speed rail construction pipelines, 2024
  8. Rail passenger travel by world region, 2023
  9. Rail freight activity by world region, 2023
  10. How the world’s railway network has changed, 2004–2023

High-speed rail in operation by country and world region, 2024

China accounts for about seventy-one per cent of the world’s operational high-speed railway network in the latest UIC atlas extract. Its 47,803 kilometres considerably exceed the combined network outside China. This reflects the extraordinary scale of railway building over the past two decades, connecting major cities across an increasingly extensive national system. Europe follows with roughly nineteen per cent, supported by long-established networks in Spain, France and Germany.

Japan and South Korea together contribute just over 4,100 kilometres. Japan pioneered modern high-speed passenger rail, while subsequent investment elsewhere has changed the balance of global infrastructure. Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Morocco broaden the geographical spread, and Indonesia adds a newer Asian network. The United States remains a small contributor despite its extensive conventional railway system. Different investment priorities, settlement patterns and existing transport networks help explain these contrasts; national political systems alone do not account for them.

Sources: UIC High-Speed Atlas 2025: high-speed lines; May 2026 update, end-2024 network.

Lengths are kilometres, correcting the original chart’s density-labelled tooltip. UIC extract updated May 2026; network reference date 31 December 2024. Europe and Middle East follow UIC membership; Middle East plus North Africa here is Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Rounded component figures sum to 67,724 km versus the published world total of 67,723 km; shares use the published total.

High-speed rail in China and Europe by completion stage, 2024

China and Europe remain the largest established centres of high-speed railway development. China has nearly 47,800 kilometres operating, compared with Europe’s approximately 13,000. A further 6,243 kilometres are under construction in China, against 3,438 in Europe. The difference reflects the much greater scale of China’s network and investment programme, rather than simply a contrast between finished and unfinished projects.

Europe has more approved but unstarted high-speed lines than China in this snapshot: 4,615 kilometres against 3,754. China, however, has the larger long-term pipeline, with 7,134 kilometres compared with Europe’s 3,166. European expansion involves several national systems and important cross-border connections, while China is extending an already large domestic network. Both programmes seek to connect more cities and strengthen rail’s position against road and air travel. The balance between operating, building and proposed lines suggests continued development in both markets, although approved projects need not open on their original schedules.

Sources: UIC High-Speed Atlas 2025: high-speed lines; May 2026 update, end-2024 network.

Stages are mutually exclusive UIC categories: planned means approved but construction not started; long-term means not approved. Reference date 31 December 2024, extract updated May 2026. Snapshot totals do not establish project completion rates; rounded stages may differ by 1 km from published totals.

Rail network length by world region, 2023

Asia-Pacific has the largest railway network in UIC’s global regional assessment, at about 451,000 kilometres. The Americas follow with approximately 346,000, and Europe with 269,000. North America’s extensive freight railways remain central to the continental total, carrying goods over long distances between industrial centres, agricultural regions and ports. Europe’s network reflects an earlier period of intensive railway development, supporting passenger services alongside freight.

China’s expansion has helped shift the global balance towards Asia-Pacific, where network length grew by almost thirty per cent between 2004 and 2023. The Americas’ total contracted over the same period, while Europe changed comparatively little. Africa and the Middle East have smaller networks, although investment in new corridors and upgrades is widening their reach. These contrasts preserve the original distinction between long-established industrial railway systems and regions with less extensive infrastructure, while showing that Asia’s recent construction has become a major influence on worldwide network growth.

Sources: UIC: global line-km, passenger-km and tonne-km, 2004–2023.

Uses UIC’s five harmonised reporting regions in place of the original undated bespoke regional totals. These are line/route kilometres, not the combined length of parallel tracks. Published global total: 1,177,305 km; rounded regional rows sum to 1,177,305 km. The latest verified open global series ends in 2023; this is not a 2026 network census.

Rail network density by world region: comparable 2021 benchmark

Europe and Northern America have the highest railway density in this regional benchmark, at approximately thirteen kilometres of route per thousand square kilometres of land. Asia-Pacific follows at around seven to eight. Europe’s long-established urban and industrial connections remain an important part of this contrast. Dense networks in several Western European countries connect neighbouring towns and cities, while North American railways serve longer freight corridors across a much larger territory.

Northern Africa and Western Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa have lower regional densities. In many places, railways connect selected ports, mines or agricultural areas rather than providing an extensive network between population centres. Asia-Pacific’s density increased substantially between 2000 and 2021, narrowing its gap with Europe and Northern America. New lines can improve connections, but their benefits also depend on usable stations, reliable services and links to other transport. A sparse national network can still contain heavily used and economically important corridors.

Sources: Asian Transport Outlook / ADB: SDG transport status report 2023, figure 14, page 25; UIC: national railway density map, 2023.

Older, explicitly dated benchmark retained because a newer complete comparable regional density dataset could not be verified. Values are approximate one-decimal readings of published 2021 bars, not a new calculation or a 2026 estimate. Regional groupings differ from chart 3 and from the original page. Route-km per 1,000 km² is numerically equivalent to metres per km²; density does not measure service frequency or universal accessibility.

Fastest average operating speeds in commercial traffic, 2025 survey

China retains a clear lead in scheduled high-speed rail performance. The Beijing–Nanjing service averages approximately 318 kilometres per hour over more than 1,000 kilometres, placing it well ahead of the other entries in the 2025 survey. France and Japan follow at about 272 kilometres per hour on their fastest qualifying station pairs. Italy’s leading service averages roughly 264, with Taiwan and Spain also exceeding 250.

Morocco’s Al Boraq service demonstrates that fast commercial railway operation extends beyond Europe and East Asia. Its leading station pair averages approximately 233 kilometres per hour, close to Germany’s fastest qualifying ICE run. Saudi Arabia also appears among the leading entries. Compared with the original collection of historical records, this survey provides a clearer picture of recent passenger services. Long stretches of high-speed infrastructure and relatively widely spaced stops favour high averages, while acceleration, braking and slower approaches to stations reduce journey speeds even when trains have similar maximum operating capabilities.

Sources: Jeremy Hartill, Railway Gazette: World Speed Survey 2025; Public reproduction of the survey’s station-pair distances and scheduled timings; High Speed Rail Alliance: independent summary of the 2025 survey.

Selected ten leading survey entries; includes one international category, not ten distinct countries. Values recalculated as published distance × 60 ÷ scheduled minutes, rounded to 0.1 km/h. The Railway Gazette article is paywalled; detailed figures use its attributed public reproduction, with the leading entries and ordering cross-checked against the Alliance summary. The earlier chart mixed historical records; retired Maglev timings are not treated as current. This is the 2025 survey, not live October 2026 timetables.

The ten largest operational high-speed rail networks, 2024

China’s high-speed network is nearly twelve times Spain’s, the second-largest national entry in the UIC extract. Japan follows with 3,272 kilometres, ahead of France and Germany. The enormous difference at the top reflects China’s combination of population, geography and sustained railway construction. Spain’s position also stands out: its network is substantially larger than those of several more populous European countries.

Türkiye, Finland, Italy, Sweden and South Korea complete the ten. Their networks serve different purposes and settlement patterns, from European routes connecting regional centres to East Asian corridors linking large urban areas. Network length alone does not determine passenger demand or the frequency of services. Japan’s railway system, for example, has a long-established role in intercity travel despite its much smaller high-speed mileage than China. China continued expanding after the atlas reference date, reaching a nationally reported 50,400 kilometres by the end of 2025, reinforcing the scale of its lead.

Sources: UIC High-Speed Atlas 2025: high-speed lines; May 2026 update, end-2024 network; China State Council: national railway mileage at the end of 2025.

Common UIC snapshot at 31 December 2024, not mixed national observation dates. UIC includes qualifying upgraded lines as well as new high-speed infrastructure. China’s separate 2025 national figure is contextual and is not spliced into the 2024 ranking.

Largest high-speed rail construction pipelines, 2024

China has by far the largest high-speed rail construction programme in the UIC extract, with more than 6,200 kilometres being built. Türkiye and Egypt follow, each with well over 1,700 kilometres. These projects indicate that expansion is spreading beyond the countries with the largest established networks. Egypt, in particular, combines a substantial construction programme with no operational high-speed mileage in the same snapshot.

Iraq and the Baltic states also have sizeable entries. Rail Baltica is a joint programme covering Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, intended to strengthen railway connections within the region and with the rest of Europe. Spain continues extending an already extensive network, while India and Thailand are building their first major high-speed corridors. Iran and Italy complete the ten largest construction entries. The geographical spread suggests that the next phase of railway expansion will involve both established high-speed markets and new systems, with infrastructure still needing to be completed before passengers can benefit.

Sources: UIC High-Speed Atlas 2025: high-speed lines; May 2026 update, end-2024 network.

Under-construction stage only, as reported for the end-2024 atlas snapshot; not a current project-status tracker. Rail Baltica is UIC’s combined Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania entry. Approvals and speculative long-term proposals are excluded. Contemporary opening dates are not inferred from pipeline length.

Rail passenger travel by world region, 2023

Asia-Pacific accounts for nearly eighty-three per cent of worldwide rail passenger distance in UIC’s 2023 assessment. Its approximately 3.16 trillion passenger-kilometres vastly exceed Europe’s 521 billion. China, India and Japan are major contributors, combining large populations with railway systems that carry extensive commuter, regional and intercity traffic. The balance is therefore even more concentrated than the distribution of railway infrastructure.

Europe remains the second-largest passenger railway market by distance travelled. The Americas, Africa and the Middle East each contribute much smaller totals. This illustrates an important distinction between the size of a network and its role in daily travel: the Americas have extensive railway infrastructure but much of it is oriented towards freight. Passenger demand also recovered unevenly after the pandemic. Europe exceeded its 2019 passenger-distance total by 2023, while Asia-Pacific remained below its earlier peak despite a strong recovery from the disruption of 2020–2022.

Sources: UIC: global line-km, passenger-km and tonne-km, 2004–2023.

Passenger-kilometres count distance travelled, not journeys or distinct people. Latest verified harmonised open regional series: 2023. UIC regional membership, with metropolitan-rail coverage dependent on the underlying national series. Published regional rows sum to 3,818,229 million passenger-km, 270 million above the stated global total of 3,817,959. This small source discrepancy is retained rather than assigned to a region; the approximate global share uses the published global total.

Rail freight activity by world region, 2023

Asia-Pacific handles about sixty-eight per cent of global rail freight activity, measured by the distance over which goods are carried. Its total exceeds eight trillion tonne-kilometres in 2023. The Americas contribute around 3.08 trillion, or twenty-six per cent, confirming the importance of long-distance freight in North American railway systems. Together, these two regions account for almost ninety-four per cent of worldwide rail freight activity.

Europe contributes a much smaller share, despite its dense infrastructure and prominent international transport corridors. Freight demand depends on the location of mines, factories, farms and ports, as well as the distances between them. Rail is particularly useful for moving large volumes of bulk goods over long routes, while road transport often provides more flexible short-distance distribution. Between 2004 and 2023, Asia-Pacific’s freight total increased markedly, whereas the Americas were broadly unchanged. The result is a growing geographical concentration of railway freight, alongside considerable differences in the transport needs of individual regions.

Sources: UIC: global line-km, passenger-km and tonne-km, 2004–2023.

Tonne-kilometres combine cargo weight and distance; they are not tonnes loaded or train counts. Latest verified harmonised open regional series: 2023. Rounded regional figures sum to 11,924,756 million tonne-km. Region labels follow UIC, rather than the original page’s bespoke membership.

How the world’s railway network has changed, 2004–2023

The worldwide railway network increased from about 1.094 million kilometres in 2004 to 1.177 million in 2023, a rise of approximately eight per cent. Growth was modest during the first half of the period, before becoming more sustained from the early 2010s. The global total therefore hides a gradual shift in where railway infrastructure is being built, rather than uniform expansion across every region.

Asia-Pacific supplied most of the increase, adding more than 100,000 kilometres between the two endpoints. The Middle East also expanded, although from a much smaller base. Network length in the Americas declined, while Europe’s total remained comparatively stable. These contrasting trajectories reflect new construction alongside closures, consolidation and changes to established systems. Passenger and freight activity can grow faster than network length when existing lines carry more traffic. Upgrades, electrification and additional capacity can consequently change the usefulness of railways substantially without producing an equally large increase in route kilometres.

Sources: UIC: global line-km, passenger-km and tonne-km, 2004–2023.

UIC harmonised global line-km series, 2004–2023. Counts routes, not every parallel track; investment, speed and capacity improvements need not increase route length. Endpoint growth calculated directly from published totals. No 2024–2026 global observations have been invented.