Health and Fitness / running

Bristol has Europe’s most running clubs per population

By Martin Booth  Friday Oct 10, 2025

Runners in Bristol have more than 900 clubs to join if you want to pound the streets en masse.

These clubs have been growing exponentially in recent years with clubs based around pubs and bars proving particularly popular and a post-run pint awaiting at the end of these sessions.

Bristol can now be declared as the European city with the most running clubs per capita.

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The data was collated by the European Correspondent based on information from Strava, the fitness app with more than 150m users worldwide.

Sebastian Gräff from the European Correspondent said: “After moving to a new city, one of the first things I did was join a running club.

“I’m not a dedicated runner, but it felt like a good way to meet people.

“Finding a club wasn’t difficult; I used Strava, the outdoor exercise app, to look up the nearby options.

“I ended up joining the biggest group I could find, but quickly realised there were hundreds more out there.

“That curiosity led me to dig deeper into the numbers and collect data from about 40,000 clubs across 300 European cities.”

Main photo: Martin Booth

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