List of countries by rail usage

This is the number of tonnes or passengers multiplied by the average distance of their journeys in kilometres.

Thus China and India together contribute almost half of world's passenger travel.

In 2014, there were about 1 million kilometres (621,400 miles) of railway in the world, a decrease of 3% compared to 2013.

In America and Europe, many low-fare airlines and motorways compete with rail for passenger traffic.

As mentioned in the notes, many of these figures are very incomplete, as they exclude metro/rapid transport rail services.