Factbox: Pope John Paul II

ROME - Statistics on the papacy of Pope John Paul II, which began on October 16, 1978:

The Pope reigned for 26 years, five months and 15 days, the third-longest pontificate in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, which spans 2000 years.

The longest Papal reign is believed to be that of St Peter, who presided for at least 34 years. There were several Popes who ruled for a month or less in the Middle Ages.

One man, Stephen II, was elected in 757 but died four days later, before he was officially installed. The shortest reign in modern times was that of John Paul II's predecessor, John Paul I, who reigned for just 33 days.

During his pontificate, Pope John Paul:

- travelled a total of 1,247,613 km, or 3.24 times the distance from earth to the moon, in papal trips inside and outside Italy.

- made 104 trips outside Italy

- visited 129 different countries and territories

- made 146 trips in Italy

- made 301 visits to parishes in Rome

- spent 822 days, or over two years and three months, on trips outside the Vatican

- read more than 20,000 addresses

- read nearly 100,000 pages of addresses

- held 1161 general audiences at the Vatican that have been attended by about 17.8 million people

- issued 114 major documents, including 14 encyclicals, 45 apostolic letters, 14 apostolic exhortations and 11 apostolic constitutions

- beatified 1338 people, more than all of his predecessors in the last four centuries combined

- canonised 482 saints, more than all of his predecessors in the last four centuries combined

- appointed 231 cardinals, of whom 183 are still alive and 117 under the age of 80 and eligible to enter the conclave to elect a new Pope; of the 117, 115 were appointed by John Paul and only two by Paul VI, who reigned from 1963 to 1978

- held meetings with more than 1600 political leaders, including 776 with heads of state and 246 with prime ministers

- the largest crowd at a papal Mass was four million in Manila in 1995

- the smallest crowd to attend a papal Mass was about 200 people during a trip to the Nordic countries in 1989

- REUTERS