What’s the largest football stadium in the world, by capacity?

The largest football stadium in the world, by capacity, is the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium, a.k.a. the May Day Stadium, situated on Rungra Island in the middle of the Taedong River, which flows through Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea. Built between 1986 and 1988 and, as the name suggests, opened on May 1, 1989, under Kim Il-sung, founder of North Korea, the stadium served as the venue for largest gymnastic display in the world, known as the Arirang Mass Games, until 2013.

However, that event was cancelled by current leader, Kim Jong-un, apparently in favour of competitive sport. Indeed, Kim Jong-un spoke of remodelling the May Day Stadium ‘into a stadium befitting the appearance of the highly civilised nation’ and, after substantial restoration, it supposedly became the flagship stadium for football and athletics in North Korea. Nevertheless, the Arirang Mass Games returned, after a five-year hiatus, in 2018 and North Korean national football team still plays its home games at the much older, and smaller, Kim Il-sung Stadium, which is nearby.

The Rungrado 1st of May Stadium covers an area of over 50 acres, making it slightly larger than Grand Central Station, and has an unofficial seating capacity of 150,000, although the official seating capacity is often quoted as 114,000. Either way, the May Day Stadium is substantially larger than the Camp Nou in Barcelona, Spain, which has a seating capacity just shy of 100,000.