This is amazing, seems really detailed and leveraging official sources too, nice job!
Since the author seems to be Catalan, I'll shamelessly plug a Metro-station-relevant event that is ongoing right now in Barcelona:
There are many "ghost" metro stations in Barcelona that been popular (at least used to) urban exploring destinations. Two of those, Gaudí and Correus, are now opening to the public via tours, if you register at https://obrimelmetro.cat
I've only visited Gaudí in a unofficial capacity like a decade ago, and haven't yet done the new tours myself so can't vouch how interesting they are, but seems there are only 5000 open spots in total. It seems like one of the tours is even during the night, so you get as close to the urban exploring experience as possible without having to run across active train tracks :)
decimalenough 3 hours ago [-]
Here's a zoomable 3D model of the world's busiest train station, Shinjuku in Tokyo:
The main East Japan Railway Company (JR East) station and the directly adjacent private railways have a total of 35 platforms, an underground arcade, above-ground arcade and numerous hallways with another 17 platforms (52 total) that can be accessed through hallways to five directly connected stations without surfacing outside. The entire above/underground complex has well over 200 exits.
numpad0 2 hours ago [-]
Throwing in Japan into random topics in trains feel somewhat unfair. Most train fact sheets fail to include most Asian nations except Japan, often missing even Korea and Taiwan.
Commuter trains in many East/Southeast Asian cities like Shanghai has developed to levels comparable to Tokyo. Trains in some Central Asian cities such as Mumbai were also always notorious for congestions. I think those should also be considered more often and at greater depths, Fermi estimated if need be, than we would be just keep dropping random Shinjuku facts left and right.
decimalenough 21 minutes ago [-]
We have stats for India, and they're no match: Kolkata Howrah gets about 1M pax per day, Mumbai CST around 670k. Nothing to sneeze at, but still several million (!) less than Shinjuku.
China has numerous airport-sized stations that handle huge volumes of long-distance passengers, but I'm not aware of any single commuter hub remotely the size of Shinjuku. Partly this is because of the economic system: Chinese trains are all state-run and centralized, while a large part of why Shinjuku is so busy is that it's a hub for numerous private railways as well.
kaladin-jasnah 1 hours ago [-]
Is India considered central Asia?? I've always seen it referred to as south Asia, and former Soviet countries like Kazakhstan have been referred to as central Asia. I think India is east of these "central Asian" countries. Perhaps this is all a bit of pedantry.
bowsamic 40 minutes ago [-]
I’m really impressed at how usable that visualisation is on mobile. It’s also really great aesthetically. Japanese artists can still do the best sci fi designs about
giveita 2 hours ago [-]
3.6m is crazy. That must be a decent % of the entire Tokyo pop.
tkiolp4 2 hours ago [-]
If only 1% give money to homeless people, that’s… a good place to beg for money. I would probably make more there than what i make at my fancy software engineering job (100K before taxes per year):
- 36000 people
- let’s say each give 10 cents ($)
- that’s $3600 per day
- if you beg 8h per day, that’s $1200/day
- begging mon to fri means $24000 per month (tax free)
lm28469 2 hours ago [-]
With 28800s in 8 hours that's more than 1 donation per second during these 8 hours. Also you now have 36000 10ct coins, that's more than 100kg in coins to move every day
apexalpha 2 hours ago [-]
This assumes there is a central entrance you can situate yourself as a beggar.
In reality there are probably 10+ entrances.
Thorrez 24 minutes ago [-]
> The entire above/underground complex has well over 200 exits.
smcl 39 minutes ago [-]
This is hilarious, thank you
initramfs 2 hours ago [-]
very unrealistic because many train riders don't carry coins, nor will use a contactless payment to pay a random begger, even if they see them on the platform every day.
sschueller 4 hours ago [-]
Wow, very nice project.
The ones in Zürich are not actually metro stations. They where built to be, but then the city voted against a metro. The stations that were already built were converted into tram stations. There where some complications like that fact the the tram is almost too tall to fit. The pantograph is almost fully compressed when the tram enters the tunnel.
The trams also switch to the left side as the doors are only one side.
I'd love to know why you'd vote against having a metro.
joshvm 3 hours ago [-]
Zurich does pretty well with light rail, trams and buses. Public transport is very good there. Two more reasons are that the city isn't that big, so you're in easy walking distance of some sort of connection, and the terrain isn't ideal. A good chunk of the population live up steep hills which are well-served by the tram system. The airport is also very well-connected by bus/tram/rail, and only 10-15 minutes to the centre.
That said, I would have loved to see HBf on this website.
coderatlarge 2 hours ago [-]
i remember visiting zurich once and standing at a light rail station when the next train was one minute overdue and all the people waiting were looking at their watches in total disbelief and consternation. warms my sla-minded heart :)
izacus 1 hours ago [-]
One of the most mind blowing things for me was seeing that river Sihl flows through Hbf between the tracks.
murermader 1 hours ago [-]
Can you explain where? Which tracks?
I have seen this comment on Reddit a few months ago, and some people were talking about it. They came to the conclusion that you cannot see the Sihl.
sschueller 36 minutes ago [-]
It's between the underground tracks of Bahnhof Löwenstrasse and the above ground: [1]
There are a lot of little neat things. For example the elevators go sideways [2] because the platform in the underground Bahnhof is wider (this is due to safety regulations etc.) [3]
BTW, what is marked as Stadttunnel in [1] is the new bike tunnel [4] which has actually been there for many years as it was supposed to be a highway tunnel but was never opened (built many, many years ago).
I really like urban places with public transport on the street. It leads to less cars and more pedestrian friendly streets.
Also I think for small distances (Zürich is not that big), I rather ride a bit longer with the tram than going down to a deep metro station, especially in hilly places.
sschueller 3 hours ago [-]
Costs, existing infrastructure and alternatives (S-Bahn was extended) and fears that the local businesses above would loose foot traffic if people are no longer traveling above ground with the trams.
arccy 3 hours ago [-]
with sufficient density and priority on roads, a tram network might be better, other than having to wait outside in bad weather
scottgg 2 hours ago [-]
The public transport coverage especially with tram in Zürich is already amazing
speed_spread 42 minutes ago [-]
Because talk radio stations of your city are funded by ads for local car dealers and the show hosts constantly dump on public transportation projects. For example, Quebec City.
izacus 3 hours ago [-]
Huh, I wondered why Tierspital station is so strange. TIL!
rsynnott 3 hours ago [-]
> The trams also switch to the left side as the doors are only one side.
... Wait, what? That seems like a serious false economy...
fredoralive 2 hours ago [-]
Buses also have the doors only on one side usually, if you're just running trams on the surface in traffic you'll probably only need them on the pavement side of the vehicle. It's just got weird in this case the assumption the choice was made on changed after they already had a fleet.
tannhaeuser 1 hours ago [-]
Jungfernstieg station in Hamburg has its own app to navigate out of the labyrinth even, with (I suppose) official 3D model data [1].
One minor nitpick: zooming the map is very slow (maybe Leaflet is not the best choice?). And the main station in Paris is missing: Châtelet-Les Halles.
Other than that, incredible work!! Amazing.
diiiimaaaa 3 hours ago [-]
Leaflet should easily handle stuff like this if configured correctly. OP just slaps 3000 markers in a single layer, and each of them is an image element in dom. Should probably use some marker clustering for that.
benoitg 4 hours ago [-]
Châtelet is there, you have to click on the 3D icon to experience the full majesty of its unending corridors in 3D
tcumulus 4 hours ago [-]
There even is a section on Chatelet Les Halles if you scroll down. Insane station.
guilamu 4 hours ago [-]
Zooming working perfectly on my galaxy s23.
Also, Châtelet les Halles is available just after 'Château d'eau".
walterlw 4 hours ago [-]
Very impressive work.
Was very saddened to see how Ukrainian Kyiv and Kharkiv stations were excluded. We have deep stations (like Arsenal'na at 105m that connects directly to the above-ground Dnipro station on a river bank), we have both Soviet-made and new stations. Also now they are doubly essential being used for both transportation and shelter during air raids by millions.
rjsw 3 hours ago [-]
Why make it easier for an enemy to plan an attack on them.
baubino 1 hours ago [-]
This is why agencies don’t published detailed plans (only schematics) of train stations and airports. I learned this when working on a project for the New York subway in the early 2000s.
pessimizer 2 hours ago [-]
Reading comments like yours makes me wonder what kind of mental model of the world some people are working with. Russia does not need HN comments to tell them where train stations are.
baubino 1 hours ago [-]
Of course they know where the stations are. But they don’t necessarily know the precise local of all the underground tunnels, exits, mechanical rooms, equipment, etc. The underground network is far more complex than what the consumer map hanging on the wall in the station shows.
diggan 16 minutes ago [-]
During the Cold War, Russia managed to map huge parts of the world, sometimes with higher quality and more accurate measurements than the countries themselves! Especially noteworthy considering that some of those countries (like the UK) were trying their hardest to prevent those sort of maps being made in the first place, yet the Russians ended up with better maps of the UK than UK themselves.
Considering that that happened decades ago, I'm guessing their (and others) capability of doing those sort of things have only improved, not gotten worse. But that's just me guessing.
This guy has spent the last 10 years drawing about 2,547 stations around the world and making 3D models available to everyone. This might be the most amazing thing I have ever seen on the internet. Kudos.
jdranczewski 4 hours ago [-]
A very cool project, and a great resource for people with reduced mobility - I semi-regularly use Transport for London's station drawings (linked on this website) over the official accessibility map, which doesn't differentiate between stairs and escalators for example.
alkyon 2 hours ago [-]
Very nice. One nitpick: Malaga-Fuengirola C-1 line is suburban train and not metro (C stands for Cercanías)
Warsaw Metro has 36 station but only one is included. Metro systems of Kyiv, Minsk, Saint Petersburg and Moscow are not shown at all.
Edit: Removed Vilnius as it has only plans for a metro system
throw-the-towel 58 minutes ago [-]
Vilnius doesn't have a metro.
alkyon 49 minutes ago [-]
Right, my mistake.
wiether 4 hours ago [-]
Incredible work!
I first looked at _regular_ stations, but once I understood that it was done by a single guy, I had to look at Paris' Mordor: Châtelet.
The 3D view looks like an ants nest, as expected.
Very impressed by the work done!
StopDisinfo910 6 minutes ago [-]
The issue with Châtelet - aside from how crowded it is - is that it’s two stations masquerading as one, same as Montparnasse-Bienvenüe.
Once you know what’s on which side and that the directions in the main hall are purposefully made to have you meander for flow control and you can just cut through, it gets a lot more manageable.
prof-dr-ir 3 hours ago [-]
> Paris' Mordor: Châtelet.
"Worst of all, the air was full of fumes; breathing was painful and difficult, and a dizziness came on them, so that they staggered and often fell. And yet their wills did not yield, and they struggled on."
jddj 4 hours ago [-]
Very impressive work.
I also learned something, which I'd always wondered cynically but never thought to investigate. The walking connection between lines at some stations in Barcelona seems so long as to not make sense, but it's explained here that at the time the different lines and stations were dug and extended independently by different companies.
> Among the reasons for having such long corridors [in Barcelona] is the lack of planning or the vision of the metro network as a bunch of individual lines. As an example: line 1 and line 4 were extended to Urquinaona in 1932, but both lines were not connected until 1972, as they were originally operated by different companies.
FearNotDaniel 2 hours ago [-]
In London that’s also mostly true due to the patchwork history of different companies building different lines… however when King’s Cross/St Pancras was redeveloped a few years ago the “official” interchange route between Piccadilly and Victoria lines became much, much longer - minutes of walking compared to seconds. This site doesn’t cover that station, but does link to TfL’s own diagrams via IanVisits, and the reason is clear: at one end the platforms of both lines are almost touching - and I believe that shortcut staircase is still there if you ignore the signs and know where to find it - but the tourist friendly route is much more circuitous, going up to the mainline station and back again. I assume it helps to relieve congestion in an extremely busy station, I remember more than one occasion when they just have to close entry to the platforms during rush hour due to overcrowding.
undebuggable 4 hours ago [-]
I was never able to build mental model of Alexanderplatz in Berlin. Most of the times was simply following the signs and yup, the layout is complicated.
throw-qqqqq 4 hours ago [-]
Holy shit! This is an incredible piece of work.
And they are almost all drawn “manually”! I am SO impressed by the dedication
> For the last 10 years I have been able to draw around 2,547 stations
> A pen, a notebook, a bit of spatial vision and the willingness to navigate all the staircases, corridors, platforms and mezzanines are enough to draw a station
> Due to the boredom provoked by the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, I decided to digitalize all the sketches I had drawn in since the early 2010s
alvaro_calleja 3 hours ago [-]
OMG this is amazing! I've checked my station (Velázquez - Madrid) and it is 100% accurate. Also, the 3D stations are insane! ¡Enhorabona!
hbarka 1 hours ago [-]
This is a remarkable feat. Amazing.
I’d like to add an interesting metric: density of subway/metro stations as measured by number of stations per square kilometer.
In European cities,
City,
Metro System,
Stations,
City Area (km²),
Density (stations/km²):
1. Paris,
Metro de Paris,
244,
105,
2.32
2. Berlin,
U‑Bahn only,
173,
892,
~0.19
3. London
Underground (London Tube),
~270,
1,572,
~0.17
4. Madrid,
Metro de Madrid,
~300,
605,
~0.50
Paris takes the lead, not just in Europe but globally, with ≈2.32 stations/km². Madrid has a dense network too (≈0.50), though well behind Paris. Berlin (U‑Bahn only) and London have much lower densities (~0.17–0.19). Rome’s iconic metro is relatively sparse in terms of station density compared to other major European and Asian cities.
Here’s how European and Asian cities stack:
1. Paris (~2.32 stations/km²)
2. Seoul (~1.27)
3. Madrid (~0.50)
4. Tokyo (~0.46)
5. London (~0.17)
6. Berlin (~0.19)
7. Hong Kong (~0.09)
8. Shanghai (~0.06)
9. Rome (~0.057)
Seoul is highest among major Asian metro systems in terms of station concentration, making it the city in Asia with the densest metro network per square kilometer. Seoul has 768 stations in its metropolitan subway system spread across the city proper area of 605 km². By comparison, Tokyo’s combined metro (Tokyo Metro + Toei) has around 286 stations over ~621 km, giving a density of about 0.46 stations/km². Beijing has 523 stations but the city covers about 16,411 km²—yielding a much lower density (~0.03 stations/km²). Shanghai’s figure fluctuates due to rapid expansions: 409 unique stations from early 2025 data.
In addition to density, another interesting metric is
the number of street-level entrances (exit/entry points). Counting just stations ignores how many access points are available to the public. More entrances = better coverage, shorter walking distances, improved accessibility, especially in dense urban zones. Examples from Paris are:
Saint‑Lazare station (Lines 3, 12, 13, 14) has 11 entrances. Hotel de Ville (Lines 1 & 11) has 7 entrances. Madeleine station (Lines 8, 12, 14) has 5 accesses with 7 separate entrances. Alesia station (Line 4) has 6 entrances. Opera station (Lines 3,7,8) has 3 main entrances.
On average, Paris Metro stations have approximately 3–6 street-level entrances, with major hubs having 7–11. Paris doesn’t just have many stations, it maximizes them with multiple entry points, making its system exceptionally accessible over its territory.
Seoul also scores similar in accessibility due to its exit-rich stations, especially in dense areas. Other major metros (Tokyo, Madrid, London) lag when entry points are factored in.
I did not include US cities but I believe New York City might be notable.
doabell 2 hours ago [-]
Nitpick: there are a couple cities covered in North America as well, so not exactly European.
Havoc 1 hours ago [-]
Wow. The one relevant to me looks spot on accurate.
I just had a quick look at a metro station I know, Sèvres Babylone in Paris, and it seems like there's a mistake in the model, adding a corridor that doesn't exist in the actual station.
Dansvidania 4 hours ago [-]
Wow. How?
Incredibly impressive. Is there a public dataset that was used to build this?
decimalenough 3 hours ago [-]
The page footnote says that all sketches were hand drawn by the author over a 10 year period, and digitized during COVID by the power of extreme boredom.
ljsprague 3 hours ago [-]
So they are not renders of 3D models?
coreyh14444 3 hours ago [-]
File this in the "autism (can be) a gift" bucket.
mezod 2 hours ago [-]
Really state of the art project and available in catalan, hell yeah! Hats off
pjmlp 3 hours ago [-]
Very nice work, consider also eventually adding Athens and Thessaloniki stations.
misterdata 4 hours ago [-]
See also this 3D model of Shinjuku station, Tokyo:
Nice, while Shinjuku is much larger and more complex than others it has been really intuitive using it in the real world.
itsmevictor 3 hours ago [-]
Very impressive project! Congrats.
ExpertAdvisor01 4 hours ago [-]
Is there a reason why moscow is missing ?
paduc 4 hours ago [-]
Probably because he didn’t manage to visit.
ahoka 3 hours ago [-]
It says "European", not "Asian".
d1sxeyes 3 hours ago [-]
West of the Urals is Europe. Istanbul is included, and that’s even more questionably European than Moscow, I think.
a99c43f2d565504 3 hours ago [-]
It's also not an exhaustive list anyway. At least Helsinki, Finland is missing. I think Finland is unambigiously Europe.
burnt-resistor 1 hours ago [-]
Perhaps it doesn't work on my browser, but all I see are low fidelity, wireframe/stick 3D model projections rendered as 2D images without much detail that could be made in a few minutes.
gerikson 5 hours ago [-]
This is impressive work!
jamesblonde 5 hours ago [-]
The product of extreme focus and obsessive dedication.
It showed me my local subway station immediately and everything checked out.
Great resource.
ant6n 3 hours ago [-]
Love this project. Back in my transit blogging days, one of the themes was short and long transfers. And here this idea immediately starts surfacing just looking at the stations - the crazy mazes with long tunnels are cool to explore on paper, but suck for actual transfers. It adds slogs in the middle of the trips, and kind of discourages transit use because trips seem longer and more work.
When scrolling down, the author actually includes a long discussion on the best possible transfer layouts! Many of the terrible stations over time are of course historically grown, evolved over time, and weren't the result of some maniac evil genius deciding to create miserable transfers. Systems are built sometimes over a hundred years, so a later station is added mostly where it can fit, not a as a result of some master plan.
But there's also ways to deal with these issues, which can be found in Berlin.
1) for the recently opened "Unter den linden" station, which is a transfer between a new extension (u5) and a 100-year-old line (u6), a station on the old line was actually moved by 180m so that the transfer would be good. (That is, the old station was closed and a new station built a bit a distance away)
2) in general in Berlin, especially after WWII, a lot of the subway construction followed a very long term master plan (to the extend that West Berlin actually planned a network for all of Berlin, even though the East was in another country behind the iron curtain). When stations were built, the planners "knew" it would be a transfer some day, so they added in accomodations ("Bauvorleistung" or preparations ahead of actual construction), often whole station shells for the future line it would connect to. This resulted in a lot of short transfers even when lines were built decades apart. And it also resulted in a bunch of ghost stations, which have yet to be connected to lines.
neuronic 4 hours ago [-]
Finally going to get a mental model of Jungfernstieg, Hamburg after a decade of living here. Wow.
burnt-resistor 2 hours ago [-]
Xing Zhilei's cats enter the chat and demand detailed texture maps.
Since the author seems to be Catalan, I'll shamelessly plug a Metro-station-relevant event that is ongoing right now in Barcelona:
There are many "ghost" metro stations in Barcelona that been popular (at least used to) urban exploring destinations. Two of those, Gaudí and Correus, are now opening to the public via tours, if you register at https://obrimelmetro.cat
I've only visited Gaudí in a unofficial capacity like a decade ago, and haven't yet done the new tours myself so can't vouch how interesting they are, but seems there are only 5000 open spots in total. It seems like one of the tours is even during the night, so you get as close to the urban exploring experience as possible without having to run across active train tracks :)
https://satoshi7190.github.io/Shinjuku-indoor-threejs-demo/
3.6 million passengers per day. Wikipedia:
The main East Japan Railway Company (JR East) station and the directly adjacent private railways have a total of 35 platforms, an underground arcade, above-ground arcade and numerous hallways with another 17 platforms (52 total) that can be accessed through hallways to five directly connected stations without surfacing outside. The entire above/underground complex has well over 200 exits.
Commuter trains in many East/Southeast Asian cities like Shanghai has developed to levels comparable to Tokyo. Trains in some Central Asian cities such as Mumbai were also always notorious for congestions. I think those should also be considered more often and at greater depths, Fermi estimated if need be, than we would be just keep dropping random Shinjuku facts left and right.
China has numerous airport-sized stations that handle huge volumes of long-distance passengers, but I'm not aware of any single commuter hub remotely the size of Shinjuku. Partly this is because of the economic system: Chinese trains are all state-run and centralized, while a large part of why Shinjuku is so busy is that it's a hub for numerous private railways as well.
- 36000 people
- let’s say each give 10 cents ($)
- that’s $3600 per day
- if you beg 8h per day, that’s $1200/day
- begging mon to fri means $24000 per month (tax free)
In reality there are probably 10+ entrances.
The ones in Zürich are not actually metro stations. They where built to be, but then the city voted against a metro. The stations that were already built were converted into tram stations. There where some complications like that fact the the tram is almost too tall to fit. The pantograph is almost fully compressed when the tram enters the tunnel.
The trams also switch to the left side as the doors are only one side.
[1] https://cdn.dreso.com/fileadmin/_processed_/0/3/csm_Tierspit...
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramtunnel_Milchbuck%E2%80%93S... [DE]
EDIT: spelling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantograph_(transport)
That said, I would have loved to see HBf on this website.
I have seen this comment on Reddit a few months ago, and some people were talking about it. They came to the conclusion that you cannot see the Sihl.
There are a lot of little neat things. For example the elevators go sideways [2] because the platform in the underground Bahnhof is wider (this is due to safety regulations etc.) [3]
BTW, what is marked as Stadttunnel in [1] is the new bike tunnel [4] which has actually been there for many years as it was supposed to be a highway tunnel but was never opened (built many, many years ago).
[1] https://img.nzz.ch/2014/05/30/1.18312867.1401474596.jpg
[2] https://www.standseilbahnen.ch/images/8000/8000.06-zuerich-h...
[3] https://implenia.com/fileadmin/implenia.com/referenzen/durch...
[4] https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/content/dam/web/de/mobilitaet/v...
... Wait, what? That seems like a serious false economy...
[1]: https://zaubar.com/app?url=zaubar.dev/hochbahn?scene=010
One minor nitpick: zooming the map is very slow (maybe Leaflet is not the best choice?). And the main station in Paris is missing: Châtelet-Les Halles.
Other than that, incredible work!! Amazing.
Also, Châtelet les Halles is available just after 'Château d'eau".
Considering that that happened decades ago, I'm guessing their (and others) capability of doing those sort of things have only improved, not gotten worse. But that's just me guessing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1laga_Metro
Warsaw Metro has 36 station but only one is included. Metro systems of Kyiv, Minsk, Saint Petersburg and Moscow are not shown at all.
Edit: Removed Vilnius as it has only plans for a metro system
I first looked at _regular_ stations, but once I understood that it was done by a single guy, I had to look at Paris' Mordor: Châtelet.
The 3D view looks like an ants nest, as expected.
Very impressed by the work done!
Once you know what’s on which side and that the directions in the main hall are purposefully made to have you meander for flow control and you can just cut through, it gets a lot more manageable.
"Worst of all, the air was full of fumes; breathing was painful and difficult, and a dizziness came on them, so that they staggered and often fell. And yet their wills did not yield, and they struggled on."
I also learned something, which I'd always wondered cynically but never thought to investigate. The walking connection between lines at some stations in Barcelona seems so long as to not make sense, but it's explained here that at the time the different lines and stations were dug and extended independently by different companies.
> Among the reasons for having such long corridors [in Barcelona] is the lack of planning or the vision of the metro network as a bunch of individual lines. As an example: line 1 and line 4 were extended to Urquinaona in 1932, but both lines were not connected until 1972, as they were originally operated by different companies.
And they are almost all drawn “manually”! I am SO impressed by the dedication
> For the last 10 years I have been able to draw around 2,547 stations
> A pen, a notebook, a bit of spatial vision and the willingness to navigate all the staircases, corridors, platforms and mezzanines are enough to draw a station
> Due to the boredom provoked by the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, I decided to digitalize all the sketches I had drawn in since the early 2010s
I’d like to add an interesting metric: density of subway/metro stations as measured by number of stations per square kilometer.
In European cities,
City, Metro System, Stations, City Area (km²), Density (stations/km²):
1. Paris, Metro de Paris, 244, 105, 2.32
2. Berlin, U‑Bahn only, 173, 892, ~0.19
3. London Underground (London Tube), ~270, 1,572, ~0.17
4. Madrid, Metro de Madrid, ~300, 605, ~0.50
Paris takes the lead, not just in Europe but globally, with ≈2.32 stations/km². Madrid has a dense network too (≈0.50), though well behind Paris. Berlin (U‑Bahn only) and London have much lower densities (~0.17–0.19). Rome’s iconic metro is relatively sparse in terms of station density compared to other major European and Asian cities.
Here’s how European and Asian cities stack: 1. Paris (~2.32 stations/km²) 2. Seoul (~1.27) 3. Madrid (~0.50) 4. Tokyo (~0.46) 5. London (~0.17) 6. Berlin (~0.19) 7. Hong Kong (~0.09) 8. Shanghai (~0.06) 9. Rome (~0.057)
Seoul is highest among major Asian metro systems in terms of station concentration, making it the city in Asia with the densest metro network per square kilometer. Seoul has 768 stations in its metropolitan subway system spread across the city proper area of 605 km². By comparison, Tokyo’s combined metro (Tokyo Metro + Toei) has around 286 stations over ~621 km, giving a density of about 0.46 stations/km². Beijing has 523 stations but the city covers about 16,411 km²—yielding a much lower density (~0.03 stations/km²). Shanghai’s figure fluctuates due to rapid expansions: 409 unique stations from early 2025 data.
In addition to density, another interesting metric is the number of street-level entrances (exit/entry points). Counting just stations ignores how many access points are available to the public. More entrances = better coverage, shorter walking distances, improved accessibility, especially in dense urban zones. Examples from Paris are: Saint‑Lazare station (Lines 3, 12, 13, 14) has 11 entrances. Hotel de Ville (Lines 1 & 11) has 7 entrances. Madeleine station (Lines 8, 12, 14) has 5 accesses with 7 separate entrances. Alesia station (Line 4) has 6 entrances. Opera station (Lines 3,7,8) has 3 main entrances.
On average, Paris Metro stations have approximately 3–6 street-level entrances, with major hubs having 7–11. Paris doesn’t just have many stations, it maximizes them with multiple entry points, making its system exceptionally accessible over its territory. Seoul also scores similar in accessibility due to its exit-rich stations, especially in dense areas. Other major metros (Tokyo, Madrid, London) lag when entry points are factored in.
I did not include US cities but I believe New York City might be notable.
Well done!
Incredibly impressive. Is there a public dataset that was used to build this?
https://satoshi7190.github.io/Shinjuku-indoor-threejs-demo/
When scrolling down, the author actually includes a long discussion on the best possible transfer layouts! Many of the terrible stations over time are of course historically grown, evolved over time, and weren't the result of some maniac evil genius deciding to create miserable transfers. Systems are built sometimes over a hundred years, so a later station is added mostly where it can fit, not a as a result of some master plan.
But there's also ways to deal with these issues, which can be found in Berlin.
1) for the recently opened "Unter den linden" station, which is a transfer between a new extension (u5) and a 100-year-old line (u6), a station on the old line was actually moved by 180m so that the transfer would be good. (That is, the old station was closed and a new station built a bit a distance away)
2) in general in Berlin, especially after WWII, a lot of the subway construction followed a very long term master plan (to the extend that West Berlin actually planned a network for all of Berlin, even though the East was in another country behind the iron curtain). When stations were built, the planners "knew" it would be a transfer some day, so they added in accomodations ("Bauvorleistung" or preparations ahead of actual construction), often whole station shells for the future line it would connect to. This resulted in a lot of short transfers even when lines were built decades apart. And it also resulted in a bunch of ghost stations, which have yet to be connected to lines.