Each Civilization game features playable historic nations, empires, and cultural groups known as civilizations (or "civs" for short). The number of playable civs differs with each game.
List of civilizations by game
- List of civilizations in Civ1
- List of civilizations in Civ2
- List of civilizations in Civ3
- List of civilizations in Civ4
- List of civilizations in Civ5
- List of civilizations in Civ6
Civilizations by game appearance
Civilizations that appear in all 6 of the official Civilization games:
Civilizations that appear in 5 of the official Civilization games:
- Babylonian (Did not appear in Civ6)
- Mongol (Did not appear in Civ6)
- Zulu (Did not appear in Civ6)
- Japanese (Did not appear in Civ 1)
- Persian (Did not appear in Civ1)
- Spanish (Did not appear in Civ1)
Civilizations that appear in 4 of the official Civilization games:
- Carthaginian (Did not appear in Civ1, Civ6)
- Celtic (Did not appear in Civ1, Civ6)
- Arabian (Did not appear in Civ1, Civ2)
Civilizations that appear in 3 of the official Civilization games:
- Viking (Appeared in Civ2, Civ3, Civ4)
- Byzantine (Appeared in Civ3, Civ4, Civ5)
- Dutch (Appeared in Civ3, Civ4, Civ5)
- Incan (Appeared in Civ3, Civ4, Civ5)
- Korean (Appeared in Civ3, Civ4, Civ5)
- Mayan (Appeared in Civ3, Civ4, Civ5)
- Ottoman (Appeared in Civ3, Civ4, Civ5)
- Portuguese (Appeared in Civ3, Civ4, Civ5)
- Sumerian (Appeared in Civ3, Civ4, Civ6)
Civilizations that appear in 2 of the Civilization games:
- Iroquois (Appeared in Civ3, Civ5)
- Ethiopian (Appeared in Civ4, Civ5)
- Brazilian (Appeared in Civ5, Civ6)
- Polish (Appeared in Civ5, Civ 6)
Civilizations that appear once in the Civilization games:
- Sioux (Appeared in Civ2)
- Hittite (Appeared in Civ3)
- Holy Roman (Appeared in Civ4)
- Khmer (Appeared in Civ4)
- Malian (Appeared in Civ4)
- Native American (Appeared in Civ4)
- Assyrian (Appeared in Civ5)
- Austrian (Appeared in Civ5)
- Danish (Appeared in Civ5)
- Hunnic (Appeared in Civ5)
- Indonesian (Appeared in Civ5)
- Moroccan (Appeared in Civ5)
- Polynesian (Appeared in Civ5)
- Shoshone (Appeared in Civ5)
- Siamese (Appeared in Civ5)
- Songhai (Appeared in Civ5)
- Swedish (Appeared in Civ5)
- Venetian (Appeared in Civ5)
- Australian (Appeared in Civ6)
- Kongolese (Appeared in Civ6)
- Macedonian (Appeared in Civ6)
- Norwegian (Appeared in Civ6)
- Scythian (Appeared in Civ6)
Games not in the official series
C-evo
Standard list of 15:
- American
- Babylonian
- British
- Chinese
- Egyptian
- French
- German
- Greek
- Japanese
- Mongol
- Persian
- Phoenician
- Roman
- Russian
- Spanish
- Viking
Freeciv
Colonization (1994)
- British
- Dutch
- French
- Spanish
FreeCol
Early versions have just the same as Col1, but recent versions have an option of adding:
- Danish
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Swedish
(Contributors may find that an easy introduction, ensuring nothing is missed, is to make a list for civs 2, 3, and 4 modeled on how List of civilizations in Civ1 is intended to be (or more complex - or purely alphabetic), with the same "civilizations" and "lists" categories and the appropriate civ category. For names, see Forum:Nations - articles.)