All locations for The International: Every city and country in TI history

Luke Warr Published September 1, 2025

The International is one of the biggest events in esports, and while it was long rooted to one city, TI has now been held in many different locations throughout its vaunted history.

Dota 2 is a globally popular game, and fittingly its biggest events have popped up and been contested all around the globe. The International in particular has been held across three different continents, treating fans from around the world to Dota 2’s greatest esports spectacle.

But how has Valve historically decided where to host the tournament, and which cities have had the honor previously? Here’s the full history of TI and every location where it’s been hosted.

Full TI location history

The International has been hosted on three different continents, with North America being its primary home to date.

This is the full history of each installment of TI, and which location hosted it:

TI1 was notable for being attached to another gaming event, being hosted by Valve as part of the GamesCom 2011 gaming expo in Cologne, Germany. From there, The International was an occasion unto itself.

From 2012 to 2017, The International was hosted in Seattle, Washington, in the northwestern United States. Seattle is also home to publisher Valve’s corporate headquarters. In 2012 and 2013, the tournament was hosted in Benaroya Hall, a concert hall with a fairly small capacity of around 3,000 seats. From 2014 through 2017, it moved to the 17,000-seat KeyArena, and it was there that TI became the massive spectacle many think of it as.

Starting in 2018, the show was taken on the road. It’s unclear why Valve originally decided to move the event out of Seattle. Other similar events, such as the League of Legends World Championship, have helped monetize their tournaments by effectively selling the opportunity to host it to bidding cities. This may also be the case with Valve, but the publisher doesn’t share details on its city selection process.

Regardless, the event moved slightly north in 2018 to Vancouver, Canada. Since then, it has moved from one country to the next each year. In 2025, Germany became the only location other than the United States to host the tournament more than once when TI was brought to Hamburg.

• Read also: All winning teams of The International

For the most part, the tournament is hosted in just one city per year. The one exception was The International 2022, which took place in two different regions of Singapore due to a mid-tournament venue change.

The location of the next The International is typically confirmed at TI

During The International, Valve will typically announce the location of the next TI that’s set for the following year.

The International is the home to most of Valve’s major announcements regarding Dota 2. While the most infamous example was the reveal of short-lived trading-card game Artifact and the most beloved are typically new character reveals, announcing where next year’s tournament will be held is also part of the festivities.

For the most part, Valve has been able to follow through with this tradition. The one major exception was the canceled trip to Stockholm for The International 2020. TI 2020 was announced for Sweden, but was canceled due to travel restrictions. It was then planned to happen in Sweden in 2021, but this was later derailed due to visa issues. Instead, The International 2021 was hosted in Bucharest, Romania, seeing of of the largest prize pools in TI history.

Regardless, Dota 2 fans ought to keep their fingers crossed about the next location while they watch the event if they want Valve to bring TI to their local arena.