1952 Summer Olympics

The 1952 Summer Olympics (Finnish: Kesäolympialaiset 1952, Swedish: Olympiska sommarspelen 1952), officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad (Finnish: XV olympiadin kisat, Swedish: Spel i XV Olympiaden) and commonly known as Helsinki 1952, were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1952 in Helsinki, Finland.

After Japan declared in 1938 that it would be unable to host the 1940 Olympics in Tokyo due to the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War, Helsinki had been selected to host the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were then cancelled due to World War II. Tokyo eventually hosted the games in 1964. Helsinki is the northernmost city at which a summer Olympic Games have been held. With London hosting the 1948 Olympics, 1952 is the most recent time when two consecutive summer Olympic Games were held entirely in Europe. The 1952 Summer Olympics was the last of the two consecutive Olympics to be held in Northern Europe, following the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway.

They were also the Olympic Games at which the most world records were broken until they were surpassed by the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. The Bahamas, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Netherlands Antilles, Nigeria, the People's Republic of China, Saarland, the Soviet Union, Thailand, and Vietnam made their Olympic debuts at the 1952 Games. The United States won the most gold and overall medals at these Olympics.