The table shows data about underground railway systems in six major cities with date opened, kilometres or route and passenger numbers per year in millions.

The table compares six underground railway systems in terms of their opening date, their length and the number of annual passengers.

Overall

, it can be seen that the

London

Underground is the oldest and longest system of the six,

although

Tokyo

has by far the highest number of travellers per year. The two newest undergrounds in Kyoto and Los Angeles are much shorter and have fewer passengers than the others. Looking in more detail at the opening dates,

London

is easily the oldest, having opened in 1863, 37 years before the Paris Underground.

Tokyo

, Washington DC and Kyoto all opened in the 21st century with LA the only line to open after the millennium in 2001. The oldest lines are

also

the longest, with

London

and Paris measuring 394km and 199km respectively.

Tokyo

and Washington's undergrounds are less than half the length of

London

’s,

while

LA and Kyoto are tiny in comparison, spanning just 28km and 11kms respectively.

Tokyo

clearly carries the most people each year, almost 2 billion,

while

1.191 billion use the Paris railway and 75 million travel on the

London

system. The number drops considerably in the other cities. There are 144 million travellers on the Washington Underground and around a third of that on the other two lines.