Non-UN Participants in the Olympics

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.

Table 1: Non-UN Participants in the Olympics

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

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