1988 Summer Olympics

The 1988 Summer Olympics (Korean: 1988년 하계 올림픽), officially the Games of the XXIV Olympiad (제24회 올림픽경기대회) and officially branded as Seoul 1988 (서울 1988), were an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. 159 nations were represented at the games by a total of 8,391 athletes (6,197 men and 2,194 women). 237 events were held and 27,221 volunteers helped to prepare the Olympics.

The 1988 Seoul Olympics were the second summer Olympic Games held in Asia, after Tokyo 1964, and the first held in South Korea. As the host country, South Korea ranked fourth overall, winning 12 gold medals and 33 medals in the competition. 11,331 media (4,978 written press and 6,353 broadcasters) showed the Games all over the world. These were the last Olympic Games of the Cold War, as well as for the Soviet Union and East Germany, as both ceased to exist before the next Olympic Games in 1992. The Soviet Union dominated the medal count, winning 55 gold and 132 total medals. The results that got closest to that medal haul in the years since are China's and the United States's 48 gold medals in 2008 and 2012, respectively, and the United States's 126 total medals in 2024.

Compared to the 1980 Summer Olympics (Moscow) and the 1984 Summer Olympics (Los Angeles), which were divided into two camps by ideology, the 1988 Seoul Olympics was a competition in which the boycotts virtually disappeared, although they were not completely over. A boycott of the 1988 Seoul Olympics took place, with North Korea along with its allies Cuba, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and Madagascar taking part. Albania and the Seychelles did not respond to invitations sent by the IOC. Nonetheless, the much larger boycotts seen in the three previous editions were avoided, resulting in the largest number of participating nations during the Cold War era.

For South Korea, the 1988 Olympics was a symbolic milestone that elevated its international standing while fostering national pride. Only thirty five years after the devastation of the Korean War, and following decades of authoritarian rule and social unrest which concluded with the June Democratic Struggle just a year earlier, the games were staged successfully. The event was regarded as the peak of the "Miracle on the Han River". In 1999, 11 years after the games, the IOC returned to Seoul for the 109th IOC Session, which saw Turin elected as the host city for the 2006 Winter Olympics.