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Below is a list of all the 206 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) that are currently recognized by the International Olympic Committee, repesenting most countries and several terriortories from around the world.

Five countries have been represented at all Summer Olympic Games – Greece, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, and Australia, though not always as part of official teams. Out of these five nations only Greece has participated under its own flag in all modern summer Olympic Games.

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Switzerland is on this list even though they boycotted the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne - they had competed in the equestrian events several months earlier in Stockholm. France did not send a team to the 1904 Games but a lone Frenchman did compete for the USA and a mixed team. Also in 1896 Great Britain competed as part of the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland', while Australia participated in 1908 and 1912 as part of a combined Australasia team with New Zealand.

We have listed all countries with the year they first competed. The Vatican City is one sovereign state never to have competed in an Olympics.

A few of the places listed below are territories/regions rather than countries, though they all participate at the Olympic Games under this name.

* dependent territory rather than a country

Non-Countries

• Since 1992 there have been several occasions where athletes without a nation were able to compete as Independent Olympic Participants. In 1992 athletes from North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia competed, athletes from East Timor competed as Individual Olympic Athletes at the 2000 Summer Olympics, and most recently some Russian and Belarusian athletes will compete as Individual Neutral Athletes in Paris 2024.
• After the break up of the Soviet Union, the independent states competed under the banner of The Unified Team at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.
• Since 2016, a group of "Refugee Olympic Athletes" have participated at the Olympics.

Past Competing Countries / Territories / Combined (Mixed) Teams

Over time there have been changes to borders, and countries merging and separating, so there is a history of countries participating at the Olympics that no longer exist or no longer compete under that name. Also on many occasions mixed teams with athletes from more than one country have participated. Examples include the Australasia team from 1908-1912 including athletes from Australian and New Zealand. Past countries such as Czechoslovakia, USSR and Yugoslavia have now split into smaller regions. There are many more examples, see the articles about Past Participating Countries.

Existing countries/territories/regions with no or unrecognized Olympic committees

• Abkhazia
• Anguilla
• Catalonia
• Curaco
• Faroe Islands
• Falkland Islands
• French Polynesia
• Gibraltar
• Kurdistan
• Montserrat
• Native Americans
• New Caledonia
• Niue
• Northern Cyprus
• Northern Mariana Islands
• Somaliland
• South Ossetia
• Turks & Caicos Islands
• more? Greenland, Isle of Man, Jersey, Macau, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Sint Maarten, Tokelau, Wallis and Futuna, West Bank, Western Sahara, Christmas Island (Australia), Cocos (Keeling) Islands (Australia), Norfolk Island, Pitcairn Islands, Reunion

In 2013, the International Olympic Committee insisted that it does not recognize National Olympic Committees for Abkhazia or South Ossetia after the Russian Olympic Committee listed the two Georgian rebel regions as separate entities on its database for the Sochi 2014 Olympics and Paralympics. The IOC recognizes an NOC for Georgia (which has jurisdiction over the whole territory of Georgia) but does not recognize an NOC for Abkhazia or South Ossetia.

Notes

• Macau has a National Olympic Committee (the Macau Olympic Committee) but it is not a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), so it cannot compete at the Olympics. It has been a member of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) since 1989, and so is able to compete at the Asian Games.

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Related Pages

• Country Codes for past and present participating countries.
• Number of countries participating at the Olympics for each Olympiad.
• Countries and the year they first competed at the Olympic Games
• First Olympic Gold Medal Winners from Each Country