The first official Winter Olympic Games were held in 1924 in Chamonix France, attended by 16 nations with just 16 medal events, the latest in 2018 in PyeongChang had 92 nations competing (plus athletes from Russia who participated under the IOC flag), and a similar number are expected in 2022 Beijing.
The number of both nations and participating athletes has steadily climbed over time, from 16 nations up to 93 in South Korea, and from 258 athletes up to 2833 in 2018.
Table of Number of Nations and Athletes
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data source: Winter Olympic Games overview pages on olympics.com (retrieved 18 Oct 2022). The Wikipedia pages for the same Olympics have slightly higher numbers for participating athletes (why?).
Chart of the Number of Nations at the Winter Olympics over time
Chart of the Number of Athletes at the Winter Olympics over time
- Changes in the number of Winter Olympics medal events over time
- African countries at the Winter Olympics
- Number of Participating Countries at the Summer Olympics
- History of the Winter Olympics
- Winter Olympics main page.
- List of countries at the Summer Olympics