I was listening to the radio today and I heard a reporter say that 205 countries were participating in the Olympics. I checked and that number is correct. That seemed like a lot of countries, so I went to the UN web site and they say that their are 193 countries in the UN. What is the difference between the two lists?
To find out, I grabbed the lists of Olympic and UN countries from the Olympic and UN web sites, threw them in Excel, and found the differences. It turns out that all UN-member countries are sending a athletes to the Olympics. But there are 12 Olympic participants that are not in the UN. Table 1 shows the list. I was not able to find explanations behind their being granted independent Olympic status.
American Samoa |
Aruba |
Bermuda |
British Virgin Islands |
Cayman Islands |
Republic of the Cook Islands |
Guam |
Hong Kong |
Palestine (Not a UN member, but has observer status) |
Puerto Rico |
Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) |
Virgin Islands |
Moldova is a member of the UN
I missed it -- the UN listed it as Republic of Moldova. Thanks for the help.
Mathscinotes
Palestine has observer status at the UN, but is not a member nation.
I added that comment. Thanks.
Mathscinotes