A football world becomes more interesting when its map feels bigger than a familiar shortlist of nations. That is why This Is Football is organised around league locations: places where a local league system can live and develop its own story.
There are 256 league locations in the world. Of those, 255 are real locations on Earth; the remaining location is a deliberately playful lunar destination set in the year 3000.
Location is not the same as nationality
A league location answers a geographical question: where is this league based? Nationality answers a different question about people and identity. The two can overlap, but they should not be treated as interchangeable.
The world currently represents 216 nationalities. Those nationalities sit alongside a map that also includes territories, islands and other distinct destinations. This lets the game show a richer football geography without claiming that every league location is a separate nationality.
Why give places their own leagues?
A local league gives a place a competitive rhythm: divisions, promotion races, relegation pressure and clubs with records that can build over time. It also makes the wider world easier to explore. A manager can look beyond their immediate competition and find active human managers and AI-run clubs elsewhere.
Built for a growing world
The point is not to turn a map into a list of labels. It is to create a structure where locations can become visible through tables, competitions and stories. The directory and globe help make that structure discoverable, while the persistent world gives it time to matter.
Live today: the worldwide league structure. How the world is surfaced and expanded will continue to evolve through careful, evidence-led development.