Rest of the world

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The Rest of the World, within sports and games played at the international competitive level, refers to a team of players from many countries of origin who compete against a single individual or a team from a single group, such as a club or country.

As a Rest of the World team usually has little experience in playing together or working as a team, their ability is not usually considered indicative of their actual abilities, either individually or as members of their usual teams, and as such, games played against the rest of the world are not normally considered to show the true talent either of the rest of the world or the team competing against them. As a consequence, Rest of the World matches are usually played as one-off events either as friendly games or for a non-competitive special purpose, such as international aid or commemoration. However, some such games can produce spectacular and intense games, such as the chess game between Garry Kasparov and the Rest of the World in 1999. The Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World chess matches were also tightly contested.

Outside of sports and games, Rest of World (RoW) is also a term used to distinguish an unspecified but inclusive group of nations from one or more dominant players in the comparative analysis of markets, economies, military capabilities, and so forth. Especially in graphs or charts to show the numbers representing the other countries.

The Federation of American Scientists, for instance, provides a list of RoW missile systems, meaning missile systems belonging to nations other than the United States.