Rugby Union World Cup – Popularity by country!

By September 16th 2015

This world map shows the popularity of the rugby union world cup by number of players relative to population in each country.

Rugby Union Popularity By Country

It is really interesting to see that the countries with the highest popularity (in terms of participating players relative to population) are Tonga, Samoa and Fiji in the South Pacific.

The player numbers are just indicative of actual participation. They are the numbers that are registered with each national rugby union.

The shape of the map has been made to look like a rugby ball. Our cartographers did this by using an oval shape projection called the Mollweide projection. This is an equal area projection meaning the relative areas of countries are accurately depicted. The central meridian of this map has been moved 40 degrees east from the greenwich meridian to bring the rugby heartlands of Oceania away from the edge of the map, whilst still keeping the host nation quite central.

Comments are closed here.

Read more about

GIS Services

Want to know more about GIS Services and how we can help you? Why not chat to a member of our team today by calling 01993 880944 or email us at [email protected]

Contact Us

Experts in Geographic Information Systems

gi Perspective provides organisations of all shapes and sizes with geographic information and digital mapping solutions, utilising our staff's breadth of experience to exceed customer expectations.


See our GIS Services