Abstract: The foreign literature on sports population structure was reviewed from the aspects of research methods, research design, organizational implementation, results use and promotion. It shows that government-led sports population structure research in foreign countries stresses: timeliness of survey data, careful division of residents' sports participation levels based on exercise intensity, frequency, and time, targeted survey of different regions or population types, diversity and openness of survey methods, and survey data serving government sports decision-making. The spontaneous research of sports population structure carried out by foreign scholars stresses: analyzing the sports population structure from multiple dimensions such as politics, economy, society, culture, and clan, careful selection of research subjects, analyzing the reasons for the formation of sports population structure from the empirical perspective, the combination of quantitative research and qualitative research. Based on these common characteristics, this paper puts forward specific suggestions for the Chinese government and scholars to better carry out sports population structure research.

Key words: foreign countries, sports population, structure, review