There are more than 150 metro systems on the planet. Exactly how many, though, is surprisingly difficult to pin down: there’s some debate about which systems count, or whether to count integrated networks run by multiple operators as one metro or several.

Working out which metro is the largest is a similarly difficult exercise. Does largest mean “longest”? Most stations? Biggest ridership?

There probably isn’t a definitive answer: too much depends on how you understand the question. But what the hell, we’ve started this now, so this week we’re going to look at each possibility in turn. Today’s big question is a simple one:

Which metro has the most stations?

That looks straightforward enough, doesn’t it? Can’t possibly be any complicating factors here. Right?

Stations are a pretty important consideration when dealing with metros: after all, without places to get on or off, there’s not much point in having a train.

And, in this category at least there seems to be a clear winner: the New York Subway has a record breaking 468 stations, roughly three-fifths of which are underground. So, the answer is New York. Here they all are:

A poster listing all New York’s subway stations. Image: Alex Daly & Hamish Smyth.

That was easy.

Except, well, looking at things more closely – this got complicated surprisingly quickly – it might not have 468 at all. By “international standards”, apparently, it NYC only has 421 subway stations.

So how is there so much uncertainty about whether 47 New York subway stations actually exist? The main reason seems to be that the Metropolitan Transit Authority counts some “station complexes”, such as 14th Street-Union Square, as two or more stations; most networks would count them as one. You’d think it’d be easy to work out how much stations a metro network has, but no, apparently not.

Anyway, what we can say for certain is that the subway has 368km of routes and currently operates 24 services which, we think, is the highest number in the world. It’s a pretty big network, is what we’re saying here. And that’s without counting things like PATH.

Despite the chronic uncertainty over exactly how many New York subway stations there are, it’s pretty clear that there are more than on any other network. No other system comes close: the Shanghai Metro is in distant second with its 12 lines and 337 stations, many of which come with fancy features like sliding safety doors.

Platform screen doors installed at Shanghai’s Xujiahui Station. Image: Jianshuo/Wikimedia Commons.

Beijing isn’t too far behind, with 319 stations, although this seems to run into similar problems as the figure for New York, and a more accurate count may be 268.

Anyway, here’s the whole Top 10, using the figures as given by the networks themselves:

  • NYC Subway – 468
  • Shanghai Metro – 337
  • Bejing Subway – 319
  • Seoul* Subway – 311
  • Paris Metro – 303
  • Madrid Metro – 301
  • London Underground – 270
  • Moscow Metro – 196
  • Mexico City Metro – 195
  • Tokyo Metro – 179

You notice that asterisk next to Seoul? That’s because we’re only counting lines 1-9, and not a whole bunch of other stuff that may or may not be part of the network.

Confused? Tune in tomorrow, when we talk line length.

Research by Suren Prasad.