featured 18 of the world’s best metro systems, placing London Underground, Beijing Metro and Copenhagen’s Metro among them. The roundup focused on how metros vary by city, with the London network still carrying more than four million people a day.
London Underground network
London’s first subterranean railway line opened in January 1863, when steam trains began running below the streets between Paddington and Farringdon. London Underground has since grown to 272 stations on a 250-mile network with 11 lines.
Although London Underground is a world-famous metro system, 55% of it lies above ground. Branches of London Underground extend into Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, which gives the network a reach well beyond central London.
Beijing Metro and Copenhagen
Beijing Metro opened in 1971 and now comprises 27 lines, including one Maglev route. It extends for 564 miles across Beijing and surrounding districts, with 490 stations and close to 10 million trips per day.
That network carried a total of 3.6 billion in 2025, and six Beijing Metro lines are fully automated with driverless trains. Copenhagen’s Metro, which first opened in 2002, has 39 stations, runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week and has carried more than a billion passengers since then.
More than 370,000 people a day use Copenhagen’s M trains on four lines, making it one of the systems highlighted in the feature. The roundup does not explain the criteria used to rank the 18 metro systems, so the practical takeaway for readers is the scale: the biggest networks are measured not just by stations, but by how many riders they move and how long they have been growing.
