Talk:List of Olympic Games host cities

1968 Winter Olympics Error in SVG File

The SVG map file which shows where olympics were organized has an error, the 1968 Winter Olympics are correctly displayed in Grenoble, but the legend shows "Mexico City (1968)" when putting the mouse over it. (I don't know how to edit an SVG file, so can't fix it sorry). [2019-01-13]

A similar effect happens when you mouse over Mexico City. It says "Grenoble (winter 1968)". Infromer (talk) 15:28, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Untitled

I think the article should include the continent instead of State/Province/Region which is less important. Bennylin (talk) 01:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Misuse of term "Olympiad"

The table listing host cities has a seriously misleading column head called "Olympiad." An "Olympiad" is the four year period starting with the year a Summer Olympics is held, the first being the period 1896-1899, the current, the 29th Olympiad, started 2008 and continues to 2011. Yet the column omits the "III" for the 1906 games, the so-called intercalated games as they were the second held within the Olympiad. And the Winter Games, most egregiously, are numbered sequentially by those cities which held it, but these are not Olympiads! They are simply the numbers of each Winter games.

The numbering convention for Olympics are: Summer Games are numbered by Olympiad (hence there are three Games which were not held for three Olympiads); Winter Games are numbered by sequence of games actually held (war-years games canceled are therefore not numbered). The column head, as it now exists, conflates these two distinct numbering conventions as misuses the term "Olympiad." Canada Jack (talk) 18:46, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Feel free to be bold and fix that. It might be helpful to get rid of the unnecessary region/state/province column while you are at it. Thanks — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The IOC expects very specific naming conventions from each Organising Committee and Olympic Host City. One of the most important rules is that the word Winter or Summer does not precede Olympic. The season is an adjective to the Games, not to the Olympics. For example, it is called "Olympic Winter Games" (not Winter Olympic Games). All editors should adjust their content accordingly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.174.223.227 (talk) 10:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

map

{{reqmap}} Should be an overall map of host cities/nations, which would assist in seeing patterns (such as that no middle eastern, African, south American, or south Asian country has ever held Olympic games...). AnonMoos (talk) 17:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

continent information

The paragraph about continents is relevant. This talk page has requested a map to show trends in continents hosting olympics (i.e. no olympics in africa), and it has also requested a continents column be added to the table. it seems clear to me that this is information that visitors to this page would like to see. iempleh (talk) 15:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

question

Question: What is this about Newport News, VA hosting the Summer Olympics in 2010? If this is meant sincerely, some explanation seems required. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.248.102.81 (talk) 21:56, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorting Roman numerals

The column headings "Olympiad" and "No." had sort buttons, but Roman numerals don't sort numerically or alphabetically unless you're using a very old version of the software. So I fixed it. I put constructs like <span style="display:none">W001</span> before each Roman numeral. The sort codes I used are a "W" for "winter" (for those entries in the "No." column) or an "S" for "summer" (for those in the "Olympiad" column) followed by a three digit number (with leading zeros) matched to the Roman numeral. So "W001" corresponds to Winter Olympics I and "S019" corresponds to Summer Olympics XIX. For the three Winter Olympics numbered "V" I appended "a", "b" or "c". These codes won't display to the user, but they enable proper sorting. --Unimath (talk) 01:41, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

United Kingdon inconsistency

The introduction states "Canada and the United Kingdom will host their third games in 2010 and 2012 respectively.", but the table then lists four games hosted by the UK - 1908, 1944, 1948, and 2012. So which is correct? Ouroboros726 (talk) 16:09, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

1944 was not actually hosted by the UK, but they were chosen to host it. I think the table is clear enough as to the cancelled status of the 1944 games. —JAO • T • C 16:27, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

My mistake - I didn't scroll far enough to the right on my monitor to notice the cancelled status. Apologies. Ouroboros726 (talk) 23:17, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Maps

Maps are titled "Nations that HAVE hosted the Olympic Olympics" and "... Winter Olympics". Aren't we jumping the gun by, for example, including Russia in the nations that HAVE hosted the Winter Games and, similarly, Brazil for the Summer Games, given that these games have not actually happened yet? Also, for the record in general, a "nation" is NOT the same thing as a "country". The proper usage is "country". 207.219.69.206 (talk) 19:49, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

According to the maps, French Guinana's got multiple summer and winter olympics to its name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.227.6.15 (talk) 14:56, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Well obviously French Guiana is marked this way, it's part of France. That's like saying Alaska shouldn't be marked because it has never hosted the Olympics. Mspence835 (talk) 13:42, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

New question

How are the bidding countries decided?--TheShadowCrow (talk) 20:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

The process is described in the fourth paragraph of the article. - David Biddulph (talk) 07:44, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Continent

Oceania is not a continent. Australia is a country on the Australian Continent. +The continent of Australia lies on a single continental shelf" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_%28continent%29) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.208.197.6 (talk) 12:13, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Alright, this is potentially diving into pedantic territory, but probably worth at least discussing. In the table of events, Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane all have "Oceania" listed as their continent. Per Australia, Continent, and Oceania, and undoubtedly many other sources, Oceania isn't a continent; the name of the continent is Australia. I'd change it, but wanted to at least offer it for discussion before setting off a potential edit war. Perhaps it's been discussed somewhere and I missed it. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 23:24, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

@Darkage7: I've moved your post here as there is already a thread open on this topic. SpinningSpark 08:42, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, somehow I missed that. Glad it's coming back up after just ten short years! (lol) DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 20:29, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this is incorrect, Oceania is not a continent. There has been some back and forth on this, but no discussion. The continent was originally given as Australia (continent) but was changed to Oceania by an IP in 2009 [1], changed to Australia (the country, not the continent) by another IP in 2012 [2], and finally changed back to Oceania by user:Jva1254 (who has made no other edits) in 2013 [3].

We could change it back to Australia (continent), but imo a better solution is to change the column heading from "Continent" to "Region". Oceania is a more inclusive term and region is the term used in the lead rather than continent. While it is unlikely that Pacific islands will ever be the host of the Olympics, it is possible that New Zealand might, and that country is not part of the Australian continent, either geographically or geologically, or by convention. Unless, of course, we want to resurrect the obscure former continent of Zealandia in that circumstance! SpinningSpark 08:58, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

I support the proposal of SpinningSpark That it is better to change the column heading from "Continent" to "Region".Nimrodbr (talk) 09:42, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm torn on the word 'region', simply because it's a touch vague. I would probably support something like "Continental Region" or similar, but just region could mean the continent, or something as narrow as 'eastern europe' or 'the midwest United States'. Playing devil's advocate a little. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 20:29, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Continental region is just as vague as region and is still liable to be interpreted as continent. There is no agreed common meaning of the term (except perhaps in seismology where it means something completely different). For instance, this book on potato crops lumps together North Africa and West Asia as one continental region whereas this book has "Africa" and "West & Central Asia". SpinningSpark 09:35, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Very well, then would it not be better to change it to the non-vague 'continent' and then worry about crossing the New Zealand bridge if or when it ever comes up? I'm honestly fine with kicking the can 10+ years down the road. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 04:31, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

As I said, I can go along with changing "Oceania" → "Australia (continent)" if you want to make that change, but my preferred solution is still to change "Continent" → "Region". That is the most general and most inclusive. SpinningSpark 07:15, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Missing Host City

Vancouver hosted the winter Olympics in 2010, but was omitted from the table of Host Cities.--uscrand 21:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

1956

Spoken like a parochial Australian, I know, but: if Melbourne and Stockholm "co-hosted" the 1956 Olympics because the equestrian events were farmed out, then surely the 2008 games were hosted by Beijing and Hong Kong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.203.208 (talk) 23:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the distinction is made because Beijing and Hong Kong are part of the same country (SAR status aside), whereas clearly Melbourne and Stockholm are not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.202.161.113 (talk) 11:41, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, obviously, but nonetheless they are different cities. My point is that you would expect Hong Kong's role to be - at best - a footnote, which is as it is and should be. I think someone's being a bit partisan and overenthusiastic in elevating Stockholm to share equal billing with Melbourne for 1956. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.203.208 (talk) 15:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Athens twice or 3 times?

The table shows Athens holding the games 3 times (1896, 1906 and 2004).

yet the table under 'Statistics' only shows it as holding them twice. Or do the intercalated games somehow not count? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sejtam (talk • contribs) 10:09, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

For clarification it should only be listed twice as you are correct, the 1906 Intercalated games are no longer considered part of the Olympics according to the IOC Mspence835 (talk) 13:43, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

1906 and "1984"

The so-called intercalated games" may not "count" anymore, but the they did at the time they were played and the records of some of the events are still in the books. If you're going to list the cancelled games of 1916 and 1940-44, then this one, which SHOULD be listed, as it actually happened. Not listing them smacks of George Orwell's "1984." That just won't doEricl (talk) 13:51, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Sochi in Asia

The boundary between Europe and Asia more often carried out by Kuma–Manych Depression and Kerch Strait (Europe // Great Soviet Encyclopedia; Europe // Britannica). The second most common view holds border along Greater Caucasus watershed (National Geographic Atlas of the World). And in the second, and even more so in the first opinion, Sochi are located in Asia. --Insider (talk) 09:06, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• To Rockies77: In this case, it is necessary to unite North and South America in just America (per Pan American Sports Organization). Also it is necessary to replace links [[Europe]] to [[European Olympic Committees|Europe]] and Continent to Continental association. --Insider (talk) 15:08, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

The whole thing seems to be pretty marginal. You google something like "Is Sochi in Europe?" or "Is Sochi in Asia?", and you see many links saying that Sochi is in Europe - but not by much. Your own Wikilink disputes your definition of the boundary (saying that the Great Caucasus Watershed is the generally-preferred boundary and the Kuma-Manych Depression has fallen out of use), and it's not very clear in online maps which side of the watershed Sochi falls on. And if you look at the politics of thing, you see all of Georgia and all of Russia treated as European.

But my more significant question would be, do we care? This is going to be a complete mess if Istanbul gets it and hosts on both sides of the Bospohorus as they proposed in 2020. The reason continent is significant is because of the IOC's unofficial continental rotation, and while Sochi may formally be on one side of the border or other, it certainly isn't Far Eastern (which is what "Asia" means in every other case). Kahastok talk 15:57, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Nazi Germany

Is it necessary to refer to Germany as "Nazi Germany / Germany"? Okay, so in 1936 the olympics was held in Berlin. Were the borders of Germany in 1936 any different than today (this was presumably after the annexation of the Rhineland (which is Germany today) and two years before Austria or the Sudetenland. Anyway, now that I've said my thoughts, in keeping with Wikipedia's "Be bold policy" I'm going to remove the "Nazi Germany" appositive from mentions of Germany, and you can revert my edits and debate it here if you disagree.--Mrcolj (talk) 19:09, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree, and I tried to change the table, but I couldn't. It seems that that column is for the flags, and the Nazi flag probably was the flag at the time, but it puts in "Nazi Germany" as the name of the country, which is nonsense - the country was Germany, not Nazi Germany. You wouldn't call the USA today Trump-Fascist USA, would you? (At least, you wouldn't use that as its official name on a list of countries.) How can this be fixed?

BonRouge (talk) 22:46, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Host cities of single events

Is there perhaps a reason to create a separate list of cities that hosted some separate events? Some examples are Tallinn, Soviet-occupied Estonia and Kiev, Ukrainian SSR. H2ppyme (talk) 23:18, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Why are years crossed out in the last chart?

Why are years crossed here, like 1940 for Japan? I don't see an explanation -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_Games_host_cities#Number_of_Olympic_Games_by_country

InternetUser25 (talk) 11:57, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

1940 Games were not held, as explained a number of times elsewhere in the article, and as explained on the pages you get to if you click the links. --David Biddulph (talk) 12:23, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

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Unsuccessful cities table

In addition to needing some sort of references, what is the criteria for inclusion of the unsuccessful cities table? For example, the recent addition of Boston bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics.[4] This bid never made it to a full consideration/vote by the IOC because that country's national committee decided to instead to withdraw it due to local opposition. How about all the bids that withdrew leading to two-city races for 2022 and 2024. How about something like Baku bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics, which never made it to be a candidate city? Is that part of Baku's count? It needs to be clear, and cited, which cites should be listed. Zzyzx11 (talk) 02:32, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Youth Olympics

Shouldn't the Youth Olympics be involved in this too?47.213.228.198 (talk) 09:37, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Crimea marked on the map as Russian territory?

Crimea was occupied in 2014 by Russian Federation, but is officially recognised as Ukrainian territory by United Nations resolution 68/262. The map implicates that the peninsula is a part of Russia, which contradicts UN position and should be corrected. However, since Moscow hosted 1980 Olympics as a capital of the USSR, all ex-Soviet states might be emphasised in some way, because some venues were held outside Russian SFSR: in Minsk, Kyiv and Tallinn. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.69.172.178 (talk) 14:12, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

How is it 23?

Article currently says;

There have been 29 Summer Olympic Games held in 23 cities...

I get 21;

1 London 3

2 Los Angeles 3

3 Paris 3

4 Athens 2

5 Tokyo 2

6 Amsterdam 1

7 Antwerp 1

8 Atlanta 1

9 Barcelona 1

10 Berlin 1

11 Helsinki 1

12 Melbourne 1

13 Mexico City 1

14 Montreal 1

15 Moscow 1

16 Munich 1

17 Rome 1

18 Seoul 1

19 St. Louis 1

20 Stockholm 1

21 Sydney 1

MBG02 (talk) 06:05, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

I corrected it (today). It's been wrong since before 2012. It got amended to 23 "different" cities on 02 January 2017 (from 23 cities).

This feels like some kind of a test... over 11 years without anyone attempting a correction?

note: 29 held, less 8 repeats.

MBG02 (talk) 12:39, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Groupings; Input requested on an editing disagreement

For years, up until about a week ago, this article contained a section that read as follows:

The Games have primarily been hosted in the regions of Europe (30 editions) and the Americas (13 editions); eight Games have been hosted in Asia and two have been hosted in Oceania. Rio de Janeiro became South America's first Olympic host city with the 2016 Summer Olympics. Africa has yet to host an Olympic Games. Other major geographic regions which have never hosted the Olympics include the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Central America and the Caribbean.

I think everyone understands the grouping that is used here. It is based on geographic, not political, divisions. I didn't write it that way, but it makes innate sense, I think.

Earlier this month, an editor changed it to read as follows:

As of 2024, a large majority of the Games (44 out of 57) have been hosted in Western Europe, the United States, Canada, or Australia. Eight Games have been hosted in East Asia, three have been hosted in Eastern Europe, and two have been hosted in Latin America. Rio de Janeiro became South America's first Olympic host city with the 2016 Summer Olympics. Africa has yet to host an Olympic Games. Other major geographic regions which have never hosted the Olympics include the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Central America and the Caribbean.

I happened to come across this earlier today, and I found the groupings a bit odd. To me, Western Europe itself is a much less well-defined term than it was 40 years ago (Is Poland part of "Western" Europe?), plus the inclusion of three non-European Anglo countries seemed to be like a call back to the Cold War era. I just didn't get it. So I changed it to read like this:

As of 2024, a majority of the Games (30 out of 54) have been hosted in Europe. Eleven games have been hosted in Anglo America, eight games have been hosted in Asia, two have been hosted in Australia, and another two in Latin America. Africa has yet to host an Olympic Games. Other major geographic regions that have never hosted the Olympics include the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Central America, and the Caribbean.

This edit of mine was quickly reverted, and I want to respond here. First of all, the editor who created the version to which I objected and who also reverted me today, did catch me in an error. My use of "Anglo America", as he pointed out in his edit summary, excludes Montreal, and so that needs to be accounted for in whatever version we end up with.

But on the larger issue, I still do not think his framing is best. He cites in his edit summary that he was using the WEOG group as the foundation for his "large majority of 41". Well, first of all, the WEOG is a creation of the United Nations, not the IOC. And WEOG is not only a rather artificial creation of the UN, it is rather dated. Poland is considered part of the UN's Eastern Europe regional grouping only because when the groups were formed, Poland was subject to Soviet hegemony. Imposing WEOG onto a listing of Olympic sites is just absurd; I could just as well group them by military alliances: NATO, CTSO, AUKUS. Or by economic trade groups. The point is, WEOG is not a natural grouping for these purposes. And the editor seems to recognize this himself, as WEOG is the only UN regional grouping he uses.

So in conclusion, I simply find the current version, using WEOG, to be arbitrary. I do recognize that my edit fails because of the Anglo America think mentioned above, yet I prefer what I had to what has been in place the past week or two. I would like some input from some other editors on a path forward so that the current ugly and arbitary language can be changed. Unschool 22:46, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

A couple of possible solutions occur to me.

1. We could just use the "continents" that were ostensibly the inspiration for the Olympic flag. Yes, I know there is no agreed upon color of ring --> continent correspondence, but I do believe we know that the rings were for a) Europe, b) Asia, c) Africa, d) the Americas, and e) Oceania. Using this would group the Olympics in five groups (with Africa still not having any games hosted yet).

2. We could use the regions listed in our very article we are writing about. Look at the column "Regions". There you have Europe, North America, South America, Oceania, and Asia.

WEOG need not apply. Unschool 23:00, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Fiji 2024 note?

Maybe a note on slight comment should be added to the section talking about the places that havent hosted the games mentioning that fiji had the surfing portion of the 2024 games(im not very sure about the procedures to edit, but thought this would be good) K0PSTL (talk) 20:58, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm not fully clear on what you're suggesting, but there is already a note on the 2024 games stating the surfing portion was in French Polynesia. Darkage7_[Talk] 17:59, 12 August 2024 (UTC)