The World Aquatics is the international governing body responsible for the development of aquatic sports throughout the world. The federation was founded in 1908 during the Olympic Games in London by eight national federations. These were France, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, and Great Britain. Among the many responsibilities of the federation are to verify world records and update the list of confirmed records, establish unified rules within the various disciplines, and to manage world swimming competitions that includes the Olympic Games.  

Currently, World Aquatics is in charge of the development of the following aquatic disciplines:

Swimming: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, medley, relays, and mixed relays.

Diving: springboard (1 m and 3 m), platform (10 m), synchronized diving (3 m and 10 m), mixed and team events.

High Diving: men (27 m) and women (20 m).

Water Polo: men and women.

Artistic Swimming: solo, duet, mixed duet, team, and free combination.

Open Water Swimming: 5 km, 10 km, 25 km, team events.  

World Aquatics not only promotes, develops, and boosts aquatics around the world, but also aims to create opportunities for athletes and to encourage support and interest in each of the disciplines. They work to build a better, healthier environment for athletes, and they raise awareness regarding sports and what we all could not afford to live without: water. As their motto importantly states: “Water is Our World”. To this day, World Aquatics' backbone and allies are over 200 National Member Federations in the five continents. They oversee setting goals, objectives, rules, and regulations, overseeing that all their priorities have a cohesive status around the world. The structure that makes most of World Aquatics is provided by the Technical Committees from each discipline.