Data story

International train routes of the world

88 cross-border trains, ranked by how many countries they pass through — the railways that stitch 53 countries together.

Which trains actually cross borders, and which countries do they connect? This ranks every route in the atlas that passes through two or more countries. 88 of 852 routes are international; together they touch 53 countries. Most cross a single border, 15 pass through three or more, and a rare few link four in one journey.

International routes

88

Countries linked

53

Cross 3+ countries

15

Most connected

Germany (21)

The most internationally connected countries

Number of international routes that pass through each country — top 15, most connected first. The full ranking of all 88 routes is below.

Cross-border trains by type

High-speed

16 routes

Classic

35 routes

Night train

24 routes

Scenic

10 routes

Luxury

3 routes

How we measured it

Each route lists the sovereign countries its line passes through, in travel order, from the atlas's open data; a route counts as international when it touches two or more. The ranking covers scheduled and named passenger services in the TrainRouter atlas. Every number comes from the open TrainRouter Atlas (CC BY 4.0, archived at DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21322030) — free to check or reuse.

Every international route, ranked