Which Country Has the Most Trail Runners? What Data Shows
Short answer: No comparable public dataset currently establishes which country has the most trail runners. A race-results database counts finishes, an event series counts its own entrants, and an activity app counts people who record runs on that app. None is a census of everyone who runs trails.
That distinction matters if you are searching for the “country with the most trail runners.” France, the United States, China and other countries may all look prominent in particular race calendars or communities. Their visibility in one dataset does not establish a global population ranking.
Why a race result is not one trail runner
The most useful broad historical reference is The State of Trail Running 2022, a RunRepeat study produced with World Athletics. It includes about 15.6 million finish records from 116,947 races in 127 countries, covering events from 1984 to 2022. Those figures describe the size of the study, not the number of unique people who have ever run trails.
One athlete can finish several races in a year. Another may run on local paths every week without entering a race. The study also says data from Western Europe and the Americas are more complete than data from some other regions. That makes a simple country comparison especially vulnerable to uneven coverage. World Athletics describes the scope of the research, but it does not publish a universal country-by-country participation census.
A trail runner in California's redwoods. Photo: Venti Views / Unsplash.
What newer event and app numbers tell us
UTMB World Series reported 146,933 runners across 55 events and 266 races in 28 countries in 2025. That is a useful picture of one international event circuit. It cannot be extended to all trail running, and the country hosting a race is not necessarily the home country of every runner on its start line.
An app captures another slice of the sport. In a joint UTMB and Strava data story, the number of athletes uploading trail runs in the first half of 2025 was roughly twice the number in the corresponding period three years earlier. This indicates growth among recorded app users. It does not count runners who use other services or never upload an activity.
What would a credible country ranking require?
- One definition: Does “trail runner” mean anyone who ran off-road once, someone who runs regularly, or someone who raced?
- One time period: A 2025 season should not be compared with another country's ten-year total.
- Unique people: Multiple race finishes and multiple app uploads need to be deduplicated.
- Comparable coverage: Countries need similar access to race reporting and survey methods.
Without those conditions, “most runners” is more likely to reflect what a platform can see than what the whole world is doing. The honest answer is that a verified global leader is unknown from the public evidence reviewed here.
What can you compare instead?
For planning your own running, country totals are less useful than the courses you can access. Our guide to countries with diverse trail routes compares three different kinds of route experience. If you are moving from curiosity to a first event, start with our first trail race distance guide and check the organizer's current route information.
Data note: The RunRepeat study is historical, while the UTMB and Strava examples refer to their stated 2025 reporting periods. None should be read as a current global headcount.
Cover photo: Brian Erickson / Unsplash.