International Astronomy Olympiad

International Astronomy Olympiad (IAO) is an annual astronomy educational event for 14-18 year olds from different countries, including an intellectual competition. But an exception happened in 2017, a boy from Bangladesh named Abdullah Al Junayed, aged 14, received Diploma I at the XXII International Astronomy Olympiad. Although he was a remote contestant with a guest recording, he excelled in the competition.

International Astronomy Olympiad is one of the international Olympiad for schoolchildren. One of the main tasks of the IAO is to attract talented young people around the globe to solve the problems of astronomy and natural sciences.

Logo of IAO

The Olympiad is held annually during the first two months of astronomical autumn at an observatory, scientific research center (city) or institute of one of the participating countries. The Olympiad is held in 3 rounds: theoretical, observational and practical.

The Olympiad is designed for schoolchildren of adolescence, when interest in astronomy is most actively developing. Then preparation for participation still represents useful and targeted training, without becoming an end in itself and a kind of training. This is the fundamental idea of ​​the International Astronomy Olympiad.

Teams from Armenia, Bulgaria, Brazil, China, Crimea, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Moscow, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Thailand, Croatia, Czech Republic, Sweden, Ukraine, Estonia, United States of America participated in the International Astronomy Olympiads. While Estonia, Moscow and Crimea have separate teams.

Affiliated Olympiad: Asia-Pacific Astronomy Olympiad (APA).

List of Olympiads

XX century

Olympiad number	Year	Dates	Country or Territory	City	Number of participating countries	Number of observer countries
I	1996	November 1-9	Russia	Nizhny Arkhyz	4	1
II	1997	21-28 October	Russia	Nizhny Arkhyz	4	0
III	1998	20-27 October	Russia	Nizhny Arkhyz	5	1
IV	1999	25 September - 2 October	Crimea	Scientific	7	2
V	2000	20-27 October	Russia	Nizhny Arkhyz	8	0

XXI century

Number Olympiad	Year	Dates	Time zone	City	Country or territory	Number of participating countries	Number of observer countries
VI	2001	September 26 - October 3	UT+3	Scientific	Crimea	7	2
VII	2002	October 22-29	UT+4 / UT+3	Nizhny Arkhyz	Russia	11	-
VIII	2003	October 3-8	UT+2	Stockholm	Sweden	13	2
IX	2004	October 1-9	UT+3	Simeiz	Crimea	18	-
X	2005	October 25 - November 2	UT+8	Beijing	China	15	2
XI	2006	November 10-19	UT+5:30	Bombay	India	16	3
XII	2007	September 29 - October 7	UT+3	Simeiz	Crimea	23	1
XIII	2008	October 13-21	UT+2	Trieste	Italy	19	1
XIV	2009	November 8-16	UT+8	Hangzhou	China	17	1
XV	2010	October 16-24	UT+3	Zander	Crimea	19	-
XVI	2011	September 22-30	UT+6	Almaty	Kazakhstan	19	2
XVII	2012	October 16-24	UT+9	Gwangju	Korea	20	2
XVIII	2013	September 6-14	UT+3	Vilnius	Lithuania	20	-
XIX	2014	October 12-21	UT+6	Bishkek - Cholpon-Ata	Kyrgyzstan	17	-
XX	2015	October 15-23	UT+3	Kazan	Russia	13	-
XXI	2016	October 5-13	UT+3	Smolyan-Pamporovo	Bulgaria	16	-
XXII	2017	October 27 - November 4	UT+8	Weihai	China	13	2
XXIII	2018	October 6-14	UT+5:30	Colombo	Sri Lanka	19	-
XXIV	2019	October 19-27	UT+3 / UT+2	Piatra-Neamt	Romania	20	-
XXV (IRAO)	2021	November 5-13	UT+1	Milan (IRAO)	Italy	15	-
XXVI (IRAO)	2022	October 15-24	UT+2 / UT+1	Matera (IRAO)	Italy	12	1

See also

• Asia-Pacific Astronomy Olympiad
• All-Russian Olympiad of schoolchildren in astronomy
• International Olympiad in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Links

• Official website of the International Astronomy Olympiad
• Official website of the Asia-Pacific Astronomy Olympiad
• Russian Wikipedia (Main Page)
• Exception of XXII IAO 2017
• International School Olympiads
• Byjus's Post
• XXII IAO Diploma I holder
• XXII IAO 2017
• Official website of XXII IAO
• International Astronomy Olympiad's another wiki
• IAO in Alphapedia

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