Costco Global Footprint Map (2021)

This world map plots the locations of Costco warehouses as of January 2021. Dots are densest in North America, with smaller clusters in East Asia, the United Kingdom, Australia and parts of Europe.

Costco Wholesale is a membership-only retailer founded in 1983 in Seattle, Washington. By early 2021 it operated roughly 800 warehouses worldwide.

A mostly North American footprint

Most of the company's warehouses are in the United States, with large networks in Canada and Mexico. Outside North America Costco has stores in the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Spain, France, Iceland and China. The map shows how the company has expanded country by country rather than region by region.

Point maps of retailers are useful for studying market reach. They also reveal gaps, such as large parts of South America, Africa and the Middle East where the company had no presence at the time.

Reading a point map

A point map shows where things are but not how big they are. A dot in New York and a dot in a small town look identical, even though sales and customer numbers may differ. Combine such a map with population data to compare how widespread a company is relative to the people it serves.

What the map cannot show

A warehouse typically stocks a limited range of products, sold in bulk at a low margin, and charges an annual membership fee. The company's own brand, Kirkland Signature, takes its name from Kirkland, Washington, where the company was headquartered before moving to Issaquah. The map gives a good picture of geographic reach but says nothing about sales per store or about the number of members.

Key facts

Questions about this map

What is a membership warehouse club?

A retailer that charges an annual fee for the right to shop in its stores.

Is the map current?

It shows January 2021, and the number of locations has grown since.

Which regions have the most stores?

North America has by far the most.