2008 Summer Olympics Parade of Nations was part of the opening ceremony that originating with the 1896 Olympic Games. The national team from each nation participating in the Olympic Games paraded behind their national flag into the Olympic Stadium. The flag bearer was an athlete of each national delegation chosen, to represent the athletes, either by the National Olympic Committee or by the national team.

Announcers in the stadium read off the names of the marching nations in French, English, (the official languages of the Olympics) and Mandarin Chinese with music accompanying the athletes as they marched into the stadium.

The Marshall Islands, Montenegro, and Tuvalu debuted at these Games, and Serbia competed under its name for the first time after the 1912 Summer Olympics. Montenegro and Serbia were previously one country as the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.

Parade order Per tradition, Greece entered first as the spiritual home of the Olympic Games, and the host country, China, entered last. All nations in between marched in the order of their names in Chinese, the host country's language.

As Chinese does not have an alphabetical order, the National Olympic Committees were sorted based on stroke count in Simplified Chinese characters. Specifically: Characters with fewer strokes march earlier, so Australia () marched before Zambia () because has 15 strokes and has 16 strokes. If the initial characters have the same number of strokes, then the stroke orders of the two characters are grouped in the order 橫竖撇捺折 (horizontal/vertical/left falling/right falling/fold). For example, Yemen () marched before Maldives () because has three strokes in the order (525), while has three strokes in the order (551). Multiple Chinese sources reported that if the initial characters had the same number of strokes, the second characters would be used. However, this is inaccurate as Chad (, stroke count 5-11) marched before Ghana (, stroke count 5-7) because (stroke order (31211)) is ordered in front of (stroke order (53251)). If the stroke order groups are still the same, the initial characters tie and the second characters of each nation are used. Excluding identical characters, a tie only occurred once, with The Gambia () and Benin (). has four strokes in the order (2534), and has four strokes in the order (2534), so the second characters were used. has 4 strokes and has 5 strokes, so The Gambia marched before Benin. Note that this differs from GB stroke-based order, which also uses the 橫竖撇捺折 system. Under GB stroke-based order, the comparison between ㇆ and ㇕ would have been the tiebreaker, with ㇕ ordering before ㇆ due to having fewer turns. This would have caused 贝 to be ordered before 冈 instead of the two characters tying, and Benin would have marched before The Gambia. If the second characters still have the same number of strokes, then the stroke order groups are used again. For example, Djibouti () marched before Kyrgyzstan () because has five strokes in the order (13252), while has five strokes in the order (35234). If the third characters still have the same number of strokes, the stroke order groups are not used and it skips to the fourth character. Excluding identical characters, this only occurred once: the US Virgin Islands () marched before American Samoa (), since and both have 11 strokes, ㇜ (5) sorting behind ㇐ (1) is ignored, and (5 strokes) sorts in front of (15 strokes). This did not occur during the 2022 Winter Olympics, with stroke order groups used throughout and American Samoa marched in front of the US Virgin Islands.

Two nations were ordered based on a different name: Macedonia marched under its then-provisional designation "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (), but was sorted under "Macedonia" ( Mǎqídùn). The United Arab Emirates marched under its short name in Chinese ( Āliánqiú), but was sorted under its full name ( Ālābó Liánhé Qiúzhǎngguó).

Three nations marched out of order: During the 2000, 2004, and 2006 Olympics, South Korea () and North Korea () had marched as one team under the Korean Unification Flag. However, during these 2008 Olympics, negotiations failed for political reasons. Despite this, by coincidence in Simplified Chinese, the sort order would have placed North Korea immediately after South Korea, since and both have 12 strokes starting with (1225) which no other 12-stroke country starts with. The organizing team left this as-is, but North Korea refused to march next to South Korea and successfully requested to be moved three teams later in the parade order. South Korea marched under its short name "Korea" in French and English. Under the original sort order, Israel () ( (5434)) would have marched immediately after Palestine () ( (5215)), but instead marched 22 teams earlier, apparently under the fiction ( (2434)) between Vanuatu () ( (1554)) and Japan () ( (2511)). During the 2022 Winter Olympics in which Palestine did not compete, this did not occur and Israel marched after Pakistan (), which starts with the same character as Palestine. For unknown reasons, Tonga () marched after Andorra () and other nations beginning with , even though ( (441533)) sorts in front of ( (445531)). By comparison, Zimbabwe () marched in front of Tunisia () as expected, under the same circumstances ( and both have 9 strokes and begin with a comparison between (441) and (445)). Multiple sources reported that Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) () and the Central African Republic () had switched places to prevent Taiwan from marching next to Hong Kong (), but this is inaccurate as ( (21112111)) is naturally ordered before ( (25112141)). Taiwan had originally requested to march under Tái. Zaobao reported that a contingency plan had been set up so that if Central African Republic athletes did not arrive at the opening ceremony, a BOCOG volunteer would still hold the country's placard and march between Taiwan and Hong Kong. However, this is not unusual (for example, the same occurred during the 2016 Summer Olympics parade when athletes from Eritrea did not arrive until after the opening ceremony).

Brunei ( ()) was excluded from the Games by the IOC shortly before the Opening Ceremony as no athletes had been registered. One of the published lists of flag bearers was later edited to note this. Brunei athletes would have originally marched 36th between Uzbekistan and Barbados.

List The following is a list of each country's flag bearer. The list is sorted by the sequence that each nation appeared in the parade of nations. The names are given in their official designations by the IOC, and the Chinese names follow their official designations by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games.

OrderNationChinese namePinyinFlag bearerSport 1 Judo 2 Athletics 3 Wrestling 4 Wrestling 5 Judo 6 Athletics 7 Swimming 8 Judo 9 Boxing 10 Cycling 11 Taekwondo 12 Swimming 13 Canoeing 14 Official 15 Athletics 16 Archery 17 Weightlifting 18 Athletics 19 Athletics 20 Sailing 21 Table tennis 22 Canoeing 23 Table tennis 24 Softball 25 Athletics 26 Cycling 27 Boxing 28 Athletics 29 Athletics 30 Athletics 31 Athletics 32 Boxing 33 Swimming 34 Sailing 35 Boxing 36 Swimming 37 Swimming 38 Sailing 39 Athletics 40 Athletics 41 Athletics 42 Fencing 43 Field hockey 44 Athletics 45 Wrestling 46 Athletics 47 Athletics 48 Athletics 49 Shooting 50 Swimming 51 Swimming 52 Athletics 53 Fencing 54 Shooting 55 Sailing 56 Basketball 57 Swimming 58 Table tennis 59 Boxing (non-participant) 60 Taekwondo 61 Athletics 62 Canoeing 63 Judo 64 Shooting 65 Athletics 66 Athletics 67 Athletics 68 Athletics 69 Swimming 70 Athletics (non-participant) 71 Judo 72 Athletics 73 Gymnastics 74 Canoeing 75 Equestrian 76 Athletics (marathon) 77 Athletics 78 Athletics 79 Rowing 80 Rowing 81 Badminton 82 Canoeing 83 Athletics 84 Athletics 85 Canoeing 86 Swimming 87 Judo 88 Athletics 89 Athletics 90 Canoeing 91 Athletics 92 Table tennis 93 Athletics 94 Shooting 95 Handball 96 Athletics 97 Swimming 98 Judo 99 Athletics 100 Athletics 101 Gymnastics 102 Weightlifting 103 Athletics 104 Swimming 105 Wrestling 106 Taekwondo 107 Basketball 108 Shooting 109 Judo 110 Taekwondo 111 Wrestling 112 Cycling 113 Athletics 114 Athletics 115 Swimming 116 Athletics 117 Athletics 118 Handball 119 Wrestling 120 Weightlifting 121 Softball 122 Weightlifting 123 Canoeing 124 Canoeing 125 Boxing 126 Judo 127 Swimming 128 Shooting 129 Weightlifting 130 Swimming 131 Athletics 132 Weightlifting 133 Shooting 134 Athletics 135 Athletics 136 Swimming 137 Basketball 138 Weightlifting 139 Athletics 140 Swimming 141 Judo 142 Taekwondo 143 Athletics 144 Judo 145 Boxing 146 Wrestling 147 Coach 148 Athletics 149 Athletics 150 Field hockey 151 Athletics 152 Athletics 153 Wrestling 154 Chef de mission (non-participant) 155 Cycling 156 Athletics 157 Swimming 158 Wrestling 159 Sailing 160 Judo 161 Judo 162 Canoeing 163 Weightlifting 164 Boxing (non-participant) 165 Weightlifting 166 Weightlifting 167 Weightlifting 168 Athletics 169 Athletics 170 Swimming 171 Athletics 172 Athletics 173 Judo 174 Canoeing 175 Athletics 176 Judo 177 Athletics 178 Judo 179 Water polo 180 Athletics (official) 181 Tennis 182 Sailing 183 Phone Myint TayzarCanoeing 184 Tennis 185 Athletics 186 Weightlifting 187 Judo 188 Table tennis 189 Rowing 190 Canoeing 191 Taekwondo 192 Shooting 193 Badminton 194 Athletics 195 Shooting 196 Diving 197 Shooting 198 Basketball 199 Wrestling 200 Rowing 201 Athletics (coach) 202 Rowing 203 Boxing 204 Basketball Notes

See also 2004 Summer Olympics national flag bearers 2008 Summer Paralympics national flag bearers 2010 Winter Olympics national flag bearers 2022 Winter Olympics national flag bearers

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