Geography of Winter Olympics Medal Winners

Earlier I wrote an article about the geography of where the Summer and Winter Olympics have been played. With the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games starting I wondered what the geographic distribution of medal winners was.

The table is set to rank gold medals as the main factor.

	GOLD	SILVER	BRONZE	TOTAL
Norway	95	96	80	271
USA	74	76	55	205
USSR	72	47	50	169
Germany	65	63	44	172
Austria	51	61	65	177
Sweden	39	29	42	110
Finland	37	55	46	138
Switzerland	36	35	42	113
Canada	36	37	42	115
Italy	34	31	34	99
Russia	33	24	19	76
East Germany	29	28	29	86
France	25	23	32	80
Netherlands	25	30	23	78
South Korea	17	8	6	31
West Germany	12	16	14	42
Unified Team (CIS)	9	6	8	23
Japan	9	8	13	30
UK	7	3	10	20
Estonia	4	1	1	6
Czech Republic	4	7	3	14
China	4	16	13	33
Croatia	4	3	0	7
Liechtenstein	2	2	3	7
Australia	2	0	2	4
Belgium	1	1	3	5
Czechoslovakia	1	4	10	15
Poland	1	2	3	6
Bulgaria	1	2	3	6
Kazakhstan	1	2	2	5
Uzbekistan	1	0	0	1
Spain	1	0	1	2
Hungary	0	2	4	6
Belarus	0	3	3	6
Slovakia	0	1	0	1
Ukraine	0	1	2	3
Latvia	0	0	1	1
Slovenia	0	0	4	4
Denmark	0	1	0	1
Luxembourg	0	2	0	2
New Zealand	0	1	0	1
North Korea	0	1	1	2
Yugoslavia	0	2	1	3
Romania	0	0	1	1

The above table needs a little explanation because of geopolitical changes. Some may charge that the table is unfair to Germany and Russia.

• "Germany" reflects medals won by Imperial Germany, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, the East-West German unity team of 1956--1964, and modern reunited Germany. Combining "Germany" with West and East Germany ups the total to 300 medals (106 gold, 107 silver, 87 bronze). I thought long and hard about dividing the Germanys from the total. In the end I believe it is unfair to other countries because that allows two German teams for each Olympics.
• "Russia" is the modern Russian Federation. I separated Russia from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Unified Team (Commonwealth of Independent States) because it would be unfair to give medals won by Soviet Ukrainians and other ethnic republics to Russia. If the Soviet Union, Unified Team, Russia, and the former Soviet states were combined their total would be 290 (120 gold, 84 silver, 86 bronze). Regardless how one cuts it, Russia has made up for their late entry and has to be considered one of the best Winter Olympic teams out there.

From the table it is clear that Winter Games are dominated by Europe and the West. Out of the 2,177 medals awarded

• 1,750 (80.4%) were won by European countries
• 320 (14.7%) were won by the United States and Canada
• 102 (4.7%) medals were won by Asian countries: Japan, South Korea, North Korea, People's Republic of China, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
• 5 (0.2%) were won by countries in the Southern Hemisphere: Australia and New Zealand.
• 0 medals won by African or South American countries
  

There is a bit of medal inflation. The first Winter Olympic Games awarded 49 medals while the 2006 games had 252 medals.

The region that is geographically most likely to produce strong Winter Olympic teams is upper Central Europe: Austria/Switzerland up through Germany and into the continental Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. These countries experience long winters that allow for outdoor, natural cultural winter sports training, mountains for skiing, and indoor sports infrastructure. The exception to this is Denmark which has only a silver in women's curling. Denmark lacks mountains and large outdoor areas. This curbs many winter sports activities and retards Denmark's efforts in the Winter Olympics.