Data story

International train routes of the world

105 cross-border trains, ranked by how many countries they pass through — the railways that stitch 59 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. 105 of 1247 routes are international; together they touch 59 countries. Most cross a single border, 22 pass through three or more, and a rare few link four in one journey.

International routes

105

Countries linked

59

Cross 3+ countries

22

Most connected

Germany (28)

The most internationally connected countries

Number of international routes that pass through each country — top 15, most connected first. The full ranking of all 105 routes is below.

Cross-border trains by type

High-speed

16 routes

Classic

48 routes

Night train

24 routes

Scenic

13 routes

Heritage

1 route

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 World Train Map 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

Which country has the most international train routes?

Germany, on 28 cross-border routes — more than any other country, ahead of Austria with 22 and France with 20. Central Europe is where the cross-border network knots together, so one country ends up anchoring a large share of the journeys.

What is the most countries a single train crosses?

4, and only 5 services do it: the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, European Sleeper, Arlberg Railway, Nightjet, Eurostar. No train in this atlas crosses five countries in one run — border formalities, gauge changes and franchising all make longer international workings rare.

How many international train routes are there?

105 cross-border passenger routes in this atlas, linking 59 countries, of which 22 touch three countries or more. The count covers named services you can ride end to end, not every railway that happens to cross a border.

Are most international trains night trains?

A strikingly high share of them: 24 of the 105 cross-border routes are sleepers, far above night trains' share of the atlas overall. An overnight hop between two capitals is the signature of the current night-train revival.