During the Parade of Nations portion of the 1992 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, athletes from each country participating in the Olympics paraded in the arena, preceded by their flag. The flag was borne by a sportsperson from that country chosen either by the National Olympic Committee or by the athletes themselves to represent their country.
As the nation of the first modern Olympic Games, Greece entered the stadium first; whereas, the host nation Spain marched last. Other countries entered in alphabetical order in the French language, instead of both Catalan and Spanish (despite that these languages had been displayed on the name boards and used to announce the country names), due to the political sensitivity surrounding the use of Catalan. Athletes from Independent Olympic Participants did not attend the parade of nations, but still competed at the Games.Unified Team marched with Olympic flag, then followed by 12 flag bearers carrying the flags of 12 former Soviet Republics.
Whilst most countries entered under their short names, a few entered under more formal or alternative names, mostly due to political and naming disputes. The Republic of China (commonly known as Taiwan) entered with the compromised name and flag of "Chinese Taipei" under T so that they did not enter together with conflicting People's Republic of China (commonly known as China), which entered as the "People's Republic of China" under C. The Republic of the Congo entered as the "People's Republic of the Congo" while the Democratic Republic of Congo entered under its former name, Zaire.