Sixteen cities, one continent: a tour of the 2026 hosts

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This World Cup will be played across sixteen cities in three countries. Eleven of them are in the United States. Three are in Mexico. Two are in Canada. The total seating capacity across all sixteen stadiums is over 1.1 million — the largest set of hosting venues ever assembled for a single tournament.

Some of these stadiums you know by name; others you may have driven past without realizing what they were. By July 19 they will all be part of the same story. Here is your tour.

The Final venue — MetLife Stadium, New York / New Jersey, USA. 82,500 seats. Sits in the East Rutherford swamps about fifteen miles west of Times Square. Home of the Giants and the Jets, both NFL franchises, in the country's largest metropolitan area (20 million people). The 2026 World Cup final is on July 19 at 3 p.m. Eastern. The most expensive seat in this tournament will be sold here.

The Opening venue — Estadio Azteca, Mexico City, Mexico. 87,523 seats. The largest stadium of the sixteen. Already host of two World Cup finals (1970, 1986). At 7,350 feet above sea level, it is also one of the most physically demanding venues in world soccer. The tournament begins here on June 11 at noon Eastern with Mexico playing the first match.

The most matches — AT&T Stadium, Dallas, USA. 80,000 seats. The Cowboys' palace. Will host 9 matches — more than any other venue in the tournament, including a semifinal. If you have to pick one American city to base yourself in to see the most World Cup soccer this summer, it is Dallas.

Now the other thirteen, by region:

The Pacific Coast

• SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles. 70,240 seats. The newest NFL stadium, opened in 2020, with a translucent roof and state-of-the-art everything. LA's Latino community will fill it.
• Levi's Stadium, San Francisco Bay Area (Santa Clara). 68,500 seats. Home of the 49ers, planted in the middle of Silicon Valley. Don't underestimate Bay Area soccer culture — the supporters' sections at San Jose Earthquakes matches have been louder than most stadiums in Europe for years.
• Lumen Field, Seattle. 68,740 seats. The loudest stadium in MLS. The Seattle Sounders set the league attendance record for over a decade running. If you want to know what an American soccer crowd actually sounds like at full volume, watch a Sounders match before this summer arrives.
• BC Place, Vancouver, Canada. 54,500 seats. Coastal, mountain backdrop, soft retractable roof. Vancouver Whitecaps' home.

The Heartland

• Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City. 76,416 seats. Chiefs Kingdom. Famous for being one of the loudest stadiums in American sports — a sound level once measured at 142 decibels, which is a Guinness world record. KC is going to be a destination for traveling fans.
• NRG Stadium, Houston. 72,220 seats. Energy capital, retractable roof, diverse and affordable. Houston has one of the largest Mexican-American populations in the U.S., which means home-away-from-home for Mexico's traveling supporters if El Tri's group route goes through Texas.

The South and Mid-Atlantic

• Hard Rock Stadium, Miami. 64,767 seats. Tropical. Strong Latin American connection — Miami has long been the spiritual American capital for Latin soccer. Also: this is where Lionel Messi plays his club football for Inter Miami. The Argentine defending champion's most important player lives a forty-minute drive from this field.
• Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta. 71,000 seats. Modern retractable roof; home of Atlanta United, the MLS franchise with the highest average attendance in league history. Atlanta is also the busiest airport in the world, which means the convenience math for traveling fans here is unbeatable.
• Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia. 69,176 seats. Eagles country. Most historic American sports city in the lineup. Passionate fans, brutal traffic, world-class cheese steaks.
• Gillette Stadium, Boston. 65,878 seats. Patriots, in Foxborough — about a thirty-minute drive south of Boston proper. The most New England part of the tournament; expect rain at least once.

Mexico

• Estadio BBVA, Monterrey. 53,500 seats. Mexico's industrial powerhouse city, with a modern stadium opened in 2015 — sometimes called the Estadio Acero (Steel Stadium) for its design. About a two-hour flight from Houston.
• Estadio Akron, Guadalajara. 48,071 seats. Mexico's second-largest city. The home of Mariachi music, tequila, and Chivas — one of the most beloved club teams in Mexican football history. The smallest of Mexico's three host venues but the most culturally distinctive.

Canada

• BMO Field, Toronto. 45,500 seats. The smallest stadium in the entire tournament. Sits on Toronto's lakeshore, home of Toronto FC. Multicultural city with deep soccer roots through its Italian, Portuguese, Greek, and Caribbean communities — when this stadium fills for a World Cup match, it will sound like every soccer country on the planet at once.

A practical note for travelers: if you are flying in to follow a team through the group stage, the geography is not gentle. Vancouver to Miami is the longest possible domestic-ish flight in the tournament — about 3,300 miles, six hours in the air, three time zones. Plan accordingly. Soccer never makes anyone do the easy thing.

Tomorrow we go in the other direction — back through ninety-three years of World Cup data. What 22 tournaments can tell us about how the game has actually changed. The most-asked question I get is "are modern World Cups better than the old ones?" The numbers have an opinion.

See you then.