It’s a well-known fact that football and soccer are two of the most popular sports today. Every match day thousands of football and soccer fans troop to stadiums across the globe to witness their teams compete against rival clubs. Historically when stadiums are built they take into account factors such as, capacity (size of the stadia), cultural significance, location and most importantly the architectural design.

Here are top 5 biggest stadiums in the world in terms of seating capacity.

5. Beaver stadium

Beaver stadium is located in Pennsylvania State University and has an estimated capacity of about 107,282 seats making it the fifth largest stadium in the world by capacity.

This stadium is used as the home turf for major league soccer team Penn State Nittany Lions and it has undergone numerous expansion and renovation projects from as early as 1960, when it originally only had a seating capacity of just 46,300.

4. Michigan stadium

The Michigan Stadium is also known as the ‘big house’ and is the home of Michigan State University football team. The ‘big house’ presently has a seating capacity estimated at around 107,500 which has grown dramatically over the years as when it was first inaugurated in 1927 it had a capacity of around 72,000.

The stadium design and capacity expansion was largely influenced by Fielding Yost in mid 1920s who envisioned large future crowds of about 100,000 or more. It has maintained an incredible record of fans attendance and it has consistently been attracting over 100,000 fans yearly since 1975. The big house is the largest football stadium in the United States and is in the top five of the largest stadiums in the world.

3. Estadio Azteca

Azteca Stadium is the third largest stadium in the world, boasting a capacity of approximately 114,465 seats. The legendary Azteca Stadium located in Mexico City, is the designated home ground for Mexico premier league soccer team Club America.

Estadio Aztec is the preferred home turf for the Mexican national soccer team fixtures and this iconic stadium is not only famous for its capacity, but has also played host to two historic world cup finals, which Pele (Brazil versus Italy in 1970) and Maradona (Argentina versus West Germany in 1986) played in.

2. Salt Lake Stadium

Salt Lake Stadium is situated in Salt Lake City Kolkata India and is also known as ‘Yuva Bharati Krirangan’, with an impressive capacity of approximately 120,000 fans. Since its inception in 1984 the stadia plays as host to India’s National football team the ‘Banghra Boys’ matches and is a multi-purpose facility hosting several athletics and football events every year. The three-tiered terrace facility also plays host as the home ground to four division 1 football teams.

1. Rungrado May stadium

Located in Pyongyang North Korea, Rungrado also known as Kim-11 Sung Stadium is billed as the biggest stadium in the world. It boasts a massive seat capacity of about 150,000 moreover this multi purpose facility was built in 1989 with it being largely used for sports and national events such as Military parades during National celebration.

The iconic stadium resembles a blossomed flower in design; constituting 16 arches arranged within a circle and in 1995 the stadium broke attendance record in recent history when 190,000 fans crammed into the arena to watch a professional wrestling match.

Jonathan is working with online football shirt retailer Soccerbox who specialise in quality football merchandise, football shirts and football kits.