National team appearances in the FIBA World Championship

A total of 56 countries have made or will make at least one appearance in the FIBA Basketball World Cup in basketball.

African, European and teams from the Americas composed the first World Championship – Asian and Oceanian teams did not want to make a long trip to Argentina, the venue of the tournament. Egypt finished fifth in the inaugural world championship, the best finish by a team from Africa. An Asian team, the Philippines, made their debut on the second tournament, where they finished third, the best finish by an Asian team.

Australia was the first team from Oceania to participate in the tournament, in 1970. New Zealand was defeated in the 2002 bronze medal game, earning them a fourth-place finish – the best finish by a team from Oceania.

European and teams from the Americas dominated the tournament, with teams from either confederation disputing the gold medal. Since 1986, there have been three all-European and four Europe-Americas finals. The worst finish by a European team since 1963 was second; for a team from the Americas, the worst all-time was third.

The tournament formats prior to the 1978 tournament were two round robin phases – teams were first divided into several groups, with the top teams from the group stage qualifying for the Final Group, where they play each other once. The team with the best record after the Final Group wins the gold medal, with ties broken by games played between tied teams. All tournaments after the 1978 tournament determined the world champion via a playoff – in 1978 and 1982, the top two teams from the final group squared off for the championship; since 1986, a single-elimination tournament has been used.

The national team with the most wins is the USA, with four. Although teams bearing the name of "Yugoslavia" have won five titles, FIBA used to consider the championships to have been won by two separate national teams. The first three were won by the team that represented the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The other two were won by a team representing the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which FIBA treats as the predecessor of the current Serbia national team. Furthermore, a Yugoslav team was able to finish at least third from 1963 to 2002. Recently, FIBA allotted all of Yugoslavia's wins to Serbia, while the team has yet to place third or higher by that name.

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