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World War II by country

Wikimedia list article

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ718921 ↗
Source-derived summary

Almost every country in the world participated in World War II. Most were neutral at the beginning, but relatively few nations remained neutral to the end. World War II pitted two alliances of nations against each other, the Allies and the Axis powers. Estimates of death toll range from 40 to 90 million people (including all genocide casualties). The main Axis powers were Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan, and the Kingdom of Italy; while the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China were the "Big Four" Allied powers.

The countries which were either involved in or affected by World War II are listed alphabetically, along with a description of the role which they played in the conflict.

Participants and non-participants during World War II

Neutral powers

North Yemen

Switzerland

Tibet

Spain

Afghanistan

Sweden

Vatican City

Bhutan

Ireland

Portugal

Estonia (from 1939-1941)

Lithuania (from 1939-1941)

Latvia (from 1939-1941)

Liechtenstein

Argentina (until 1945)

Peru (until 1945)

Venezuela (until 1945)

Ecuador (until 1945)

Uruguay (until 1945)

Paraguay (until 1945)

Axis powers

Source:

Germany (from 1939–1945)

Italy (from 1940–1943)

Japan (from 1940–1945)

Hungary (from 1940–1944)

Hungary (GONU) (from 1944)

Romania (from 1940–1944)

Bulgaria (from 1941–1944)

Slovakia (from 1939–1945)

Croatia (from 1941)

Philippines (from 1943)

North Italy (from 1943)

Thailand (from 1941)

Iraq (1941)

Bohemia and Moravia

Italian Albania (from 1940–1943)

Finland (from 1941–1944)

Vichy France (nominally neutral, officially known as the "French State") (from 1940–1944)

French Indochina (de facto Japanese occupation post 1944)

French Indochina of Japan (1945)

Vietnam

Luang Prabang

Kampuchea

Dutch East Indies of Japan (from 1942–1945)

Serbia (officially known as the "Government of National Salvation") (from 1941–1944)

Lokot Autonomy (from 1941–1944)

Montenegro (from 1941–1944)

Belarus (from 1941–1944)

German Albania (from 1943–1944)

Hellenic State (from 1941–1944)

Norwegian State (from 1942–1945)

Kosakenland (from 1944)

Yugoslavia (1941) (2 days)

Chetniks (1941–1945)

Burma (from 1942–1945)

Macedonia (1944) (A proposed puppet state of Germany in Macedonia)

Azad Hind (from 1943)

Manchukuo

Mengjiang

Wang Jingwei regime (from 1940)

Iran (co-belligerent)

Reichskommissariat Ukraine (from 1941)

Reichskommissariat Ostland (from 1941-1943)

Reichskommissariat Niederlande (from 1940-1944)

Allied powers

United Kingdom (from 1939)

United States (from 1941)

Soviet Union (from 1941)

China

France (until 1940)

Poland

Mongolia (1945)

Czechoslovakia (from 1939)

Chetniks (1941)

Nepal

Saudi Arabia (1945)

Philippines (from 1941)

Canada (from 1939)

Newfoundland

India

Australia

Poland (from 1939)

Free France (from 1940–1944)

New Zealand

San Marino (1944)

Southern Rhodesia

Mexico (from 1942)

Dominican Republic (from 1941)

Belgium (from 1940)

Netherlands (from 1940)

Luxembourg (from 1940)

Norway (from 1940)

Brazil (from 1942)

Liberia (from 1944)

Korea

Egypt

Haiti (from 1941)

South Africa

Finland (from 1944)

Iraq (from 1943)

Italy (from 1943)

Italian resistance movement (1943–1945)

Romania (from 1944)

Bulgaria (from 1944)

Yugoslavia (1941)

Turkey (1945)

Greece (from 1940)

Syria (1945)

Lebanon (1945)

Muscat and Oman

Iran (from 1941)

Ethiopia (from 1941)

Denmark (1940)

LANÇ (1942-1945)

Cuba (from 1941)

Panama (from 1941)

Costa Rica (from 1941)

Tuva (from 1941-1944)

Việt Minh (from 1941)

Yugoslavia (from 1941)

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan

Provisional Government of the French Republic (from 1944)

Belgian Congo (from 1940)

Afghanistan

Under Prime Minister Mohammad Hashim Khan, Afghanistan stayed neutral. Despite British pressure, Afghanistan maintained friendly relations with the Axis during the war, in the hopes that the Axis would help stop British influence in the region, which came from the British Raj and Mesopotamia. In 1940, the Afghanistan legation in Berlin asked whether Germany would cede land in British Raj to Afghanistan if it should win the war; specifically, the king and minister wanted to acquire all the ethnic Pashtun land between the Durand Line and the Indus River. Despite this stated goal, Afghanistan stayed out of the war, neither suffering an attack nor attacking any other country.

In 1941, Western press reported that Amanullah Khan, a former king who lost his throne in a civil war in the 1920s, was working as an agent for Nazi Germany in Berlin.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “World War II by country” is wikimedia list article. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through World, country and Wikimedia, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1939, 1941, 1945, 1940—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, World, country and Wikimedia is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “wikimedia list article” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q718921. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1939, 1941, 1945 and 1940.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “World War II by country”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow World War II by country primary sources, World War II by country archive and World research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “World War II by country”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “World War II by country” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.