Today is International Women’s Day, and we can’t think of a better tribute than doing a study of women’s statistics regarding the Camino de Santiago.

Today, this post goes for all of them.

Let’s go back to 2004, the first time when there were reliable statistics about the Camino. In these statistics we are going to look at the percentage of women who follow the path, compared to the men who also do it. Our source is, as always in these cases, the Pilgrim’s Office.

No other organization could give us such accurate data.

That year, 2004, began with 189 women arriving at the cathedral, compared to the 454 men who also did so. This means that only 29.3% of the total number of pilgrims were women.

In the middle of that year, with the high season, the percentage improved, reaching 41% of women.

In 2005, during the high season, this figure fell again. Being only 37% women who decided to walk the path.

We continue analyzing the subsequent years and we can observe that from 2009 to 2012, women did not exceed 42% of the influx.

It is from 2016 when we can see that this data begins to change. Well, that year, in high season, 47% of the total number of people who reached the cathedral were female.

Already in 2018 the data is reversed. For the first year since we are analysing, there are more women who set foot in the Plaza del Obradoiro after having traveled some stage of the Camino.

We loved continuing to analyze data from this year on, because in all of them the numbers were in favor. Although it is true that in 2020 and 2021 the data went back, but these are years that we prefer not to analyze since the restrictions prevented, in many cases, fulfilling the purpose of completing the Camino.

We will collect data again in 2022, where the data for women who venture to do the Camino already exceeds 51%.

And we hope that this 2023 will follow the same steps and both men and women will enjoy this wonderful experience called the Camino de Santiago.

Have a good way, pilgrim.