How many Taekwondo masters are there in the world?

Accurate figures for this are not known, but it is likely to be several thousand.

Part of what makes this number difficult to determine is that there is no universally-accepted standard for when someone attains the title of ‘master’ in Taekwondo. Some organisations will award the title of ‘master’ to sixth degree black belts and above; some will award the title at fifth or fourth degree. Furthermore, different organisations have different rates of progression through the grades – it may take less time in one organisation to reach the rank of master than it does in another. Thus if one were to simply count the number of Taekwondo practitioners who use the title ‘master’, one wouldn’t necessarily be counting the number of people who have reached a certain fixed level of skill or knowledge.

There is also a large number of self-proclaimed Taekwondo masters – people who have not been awarded the title of master by a larger governing body, but who have simple promoted themselves to that degree of black belt.

Most smaller Taekwondo organisations – organisations with a few hundred or a few thousand Taekwondo students in them – will have at least 1 Taekwondo master, and may have up to about 30. Larger Taekwondo organisations – with perhaps tens of thousands of students – may have between about 30 and 300 masters. World Taekwondo is likely to be the organisation with the most Taekwondo masters in it.

Thus in total there are probably between 1000 and 5000 Taekwondo masters in the world.