Since the tournament’s origins in 1930, when Uruguay hosted 16 countries in the inaugural FIFA World Cup, the competition has been held every four years, only interrupted once, to crown the best national team on the planet.

Brazil has won the most World Cups with five, and they have hosted the tournament twice. No nation has hosted more than two tournaments, and five continents have put on at least one World Cup.

The Sporting News looks back at all the previous World Cups, including a full breakdown of which stadiums featured most prominently and how the host nations performed.

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World Cup hosts

The first World Cup was held in 1930 in Uruguay, and the tournament has been held every four years since, only paused once for an eight-year period due to World War II.

The first multi-nation World Cup was in 2002, with the event split between Japan and South Korea. The 2026 World Cup held across the United States, Mexico, and Canada will be the second such event.

World Cup hosts and venue breakdown

The World Cup has been the staple event of the global football calendar since its inception in 1930, when Uruguay hosted the inaugural event across three stadiums in Montevideo.

Since then, 18 different countries have hosted World Cup matches, with Qatar the 19th for the 2022 tournament, and Canada the 19th in 2026.

Mexico was the first country to repeat as a World Cup host when it welcomed the tournament for the second time in 1986, and Estadio Azteca became the first stadium to host two World Cup finals. It remains one of only two venues across the globe to have held multiple World Cup finals, alongside Brazil’s famous Maracana.

Estadio Azteca has also hosted the most World Cup games, with 19 World Cup matches. It will add to that number in the 2026 World Cup.

World Cup venue breakdown

World Cup hosts by continent

European nations have hosted the most World Cups but in recent years, FIFA has clearly made an effort to spread the tournament to other parts of the globe.

The 2022 World Cup is the first-ever World Cup held in the Middle East.

The 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico will mean that five successive World Cups will all have taken place on different continents.

*Scheduled to host the 2026 World Cup

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How do hosts usually perform at the World Cup?

There is a clear home-field advantage when a host nation competes in a FIFA World Cup.

Six times in history a host nation has won the tournament altogether, with the host reaching the final on two other occasions.

Additionally, 12 times a nation’s performance at their hosted tournament is on record as their best-ever result in a World Cup. While that hasn’t happened recently, performances still show a clear host bump. For example, while Russia’s run to the quarterfinals in the 2018 World Cup was not the nation’s best World Cup performance (they finished fourth at the 1966 World Cup), it still represented a noticeable over-performance to where they were expected to finish.

  • Nation’s best result in a World Cup tournament