National anthems are used in a wide array of contexts. They are played on national holidays and festivals, and have also come to be closely connected with sporting events. During sporting competitions, such as the Olympic Games, the national anthem of the gold medal winner is played at each medal ceremony. National anthems are also played before games in many sports leagues, since being adopted in baseball during World War II.^[3] The use of a national anthem outside of its country, however, is dependent on the international recognition of that country. For instance, Taiwan is not recognized by the Olympics as a separate nation and must compete as Chinese Taipei; its National Banner Song is used instead of its national anthem.^[4]

In some countries, the national anthem is played to students each day at the start of school as an exercise in patriotism. In other countries the anthem may be played in a theatre before a play or in a cinema before a movie. Many radio and television stations have adopted this and play the national anthem when they sign on in the morning and again when they sign off at night.

Nations in the cultural sense or subnational units may also have royal anthems, presidential anthems, state anthems, or anthems for officially recognized constitutive parts of federal or confederal states. These may be better described as "regional anthems", as in the case of the regions of Belgium.

Multinational countries such as the United Kingdom and Denmark compete in sporting events with multiple teams, such as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland football teams for the former and a distinct Faroe Island side in addition to the national team in the case of the latter. This poses problems with the tradition of pre-match anthems, since neither England nor mainland Denmark have regional anthems and use the national anthems, God Save the Queen and Der er et yndigt land respectively.

Larger entities also sometimes have anthems. There are a handful of multinational or international anthems. The Internationale is the anthem of the socialist movement, the world communist movement, the Comintern and for a time by the Soviet Union. The tune of the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 is the European anthem; the United Nations^[5] and the African Union^[6] also have unofficial anthems. The Olympic Movement also has its own anthem. Esperanto Speakers at meetings often use the song La Espero as its anthem. Some islands also have anthems, like for example, Puerto Rico has "La Borinquena".

Lyrics

A few anthems have been composed by Nobel prize winners. India and Bangladesh adopted two songs written by the Nobel prize winner and noted poet/author Rabindranath Tagore as their national anthems, Jana Gana Mana and Amar Shonar Bangla, respectively. Nobel prize winner Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson wrote the lyrics for the Norwegian national anthem Ja, vi elsker dette landet.

Some national anthems have no official lyrics at all, including those of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Spain, and San Marino.^[7]

See also

• List of anthems by country
• List of anthems

References

External links

• All national anthems (in MIDI format)
• Sheet music of all the national anthems of the world
• Music, lyrics and sheets of all countries anthems
• Recordings of countries' anthems around the world by the US Navy band
• A collection of national and territorial anthems in mp3 formats. Vocal renditions are included.
• NationalAnthems.us, A forum on national anthems containing background information and links to downloadable anthems.