According to the FIDE December data, integrated by chessratings.top, the number of players with a standard rating has surpassed the 350,000 mark (352,234 people to be exact). The number of active (those who have participated in tournaments over the last 12 months) and inactive players is roughly equal.
Over the month, the number of chess players increased by 2546, whereas within a year the sport has almost 30,000 new players (29 517). If this trend continues, then by 2024 there will be over a half-million chess players with standard FIDE rating.
The number of people having FIDE standard rating has grown in almost all countries.
Currently, there are 172848 active and 179386 inactive players with standard FIDE rating. Last year those figures were 166862 and 155855 respectively. It is worth mentioning that this year inactive players outnumbered active players.
Comparing to the last month, the list of countries with the greatest number of active players remained the same but there have been some changes inside the upper echelon. Spain tops the list with 15461 active players, followed by France (13716) and Germany (11989). The leaders by the overall number of players India (11682) and Russia (11164) round out the top 5. Iran is sixth in total number of active players with 5611.
Iran sits fifth in total number of new players over 12 months with 1600 players.
India is top with 2,689, Russia sits second with 2,372 and Spain and France are third (1,831) and fourth (1,703), respectively.