How many Michelin-starred restaurants are there in the world?

How to get close to this number

Bound it by where the guide operates. The guide covers a few dozen countries and a few hundred cities, and awards stars to perhaps a few dozen restaurants per major city. Multiplying cities by restaurants per city gives a total in the low thousands, which is right — and the bound is the guide's coverage, not the world's cooking.

The pyramid in the explanation is the important shape: fewer than one in twenty starred restaurants holds the maximum three. Rating systems are deliberately steep at the top, because scarcity is what gives the highest tier its meaning, and any award scheme that hands out its top honour freely stops being an award.

The origin is the best fact attached to this: the guide began in 1900 as a free booklet published by a tyre company to encourage driving, on the reasoning that more driving meant more tyres. One of the most influential institutions in global gastronomy started as a marketing expense, and it is worth remembering that the guide still only covers where it chooses to send inspectors.