The Camino de Santiago, more than 70,000 pilgrims in five months

El Camino de Santiago, a por otro récord absoluto en 2017

The Camino de Santiago advances in 2017 towards another historical record of pilgrims; If the influx of visitors continues at the current pace of these first five months, it seems that by the end of the year will break the 2016 barrier of 278,041 people. This conclusion is supported by the latest data from the Pilgrim's Office corresponding to last May, which recorded 35,345 pilgrims, more than half of the total of 70,582 compostelas granted in 2017. The figure for these five months is an increase Of 12.2% compared to 61,980 granted during the same period of 2016, while the increase in May itself exceeds 7%.

In spite of the push of last Easter in April, which reached historical data distributing more than 10,000 compostelas, May has managed to surpass in 24% the data of the previous month. Of the pilgrims arriving in Santiago de Compostela in May, more than 26% were Spanish, while the remaining 73.78% came from outside the national territory, the most numerous being Germans, followed by Italians and Americans. The three most frequent starting points of the Camino de Santiago were Sarria, with 7,859 pilgrims (22.24%); Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, with 5,200 (14,71%) and Porto, with 3,708 (10,49%).

Finally, the routes of the Camino de Santiago are the French Way (60.86%), the increasingly popular Portuguese Way (20.23%) and the Camino del Norte (4.78%).