List of countries with McDonald's franchises

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This is a listing of countries with McDonald's franchises, followed by countries without any. McDonald's is the largest chain of fast food restaurants in the world.^[1] It has a total of more than 31,000 outlets worldwide.^[2]

Countries with McDonald's stores

Badge issued to celebrate the opening of the first McDonald's in Belarus, which by the company's calculation was its 100th country

Edition of location	Country	Date	Year	Comments	# of currently operating outlets
01	United States	May 15	1940	At The Airdrome building, San Bernardino, California.	13,381 (source: May 2009)
02	Canada	June 1	1967	Outlet opens in Richmond, British Columbia.	1,400 (source: March 2007)
03	Puerto Rico	November 10	1967	First McDonald's in Latin America and in the Caribbean.
04	U.S. Virgin Islands	September 4	1970
05	Costa Rica	December 28	1970
06	Guam	June 10	1971	First outlet in Oceania and first outlet outside North America.
07	Japan	July 20	1971	With the opening of an outlet in Tokyo, the company established a presence in Asia for the first time.	3,598 (source: 2004)
08	Netherlands	August 21	1971	The first McDonald's in Europe.	220 (source: 2009)
09	Panama	September 1	1971		37 (source: 2009)
10	Germany	November 22	1971	First outlet in West Germany, outlets in the New Länder (former GDR) opened in 1991.	1,343 (source: 2009)
11	Australia	May 30	1971	With the opening of an outlet in the Sydney suburb of Yagoona the company established a presence on the third new continent in the span of six months.	701 (source: 2004)
12	France	June 30	1972		857 (source: 2004)
13	El Salvador	July 20	1972		11 (source: Sept 2009)
14	Sweden	October 23	1973	First outlet in Scandinavia.	230 (source: December 2009)
15	Guatemala	June 6	1974		38 (source: 2007)
16	Netherlands Antilles	August 16	1974
17	England	October	1974	First outlet in the United Kingdom.	1,250 (United Kingdom wide, 784 company owned, 465 franchised, source: 2006)
18	Hong Kong	January 8	1975	First outlet opened in Paterson Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island.[3]	200 (source:2009)[3] 177 (source: 2004)
19	Bahamas	August 4	1975
20	New Zealand	June 7	1976		149 (source: 2004)
21	Switzerland	October 20	1976		119 (source: 2004)
22	Ireland	May 9	1977		79 (source: February 2009)
23	Austria	July 21	1977		148 (source: 2004)
24	Belgium	March 21	1978		64 (source: 2004)
25	Brazil	February 13	1979	With the opening of an outlet in Rio de Janeiro the company established a presence on the continent of South America for the first time.	251 (source: 2009)
26	Singapore	October 20	1979	At Liat Towers, Orchard Road.	121 (source: 2004)
27	Spain	March 10	1981		276 (source: 2004)
28	Denmark	April 15	1981		83 (source: December 2009)
29	Philippines	September 27	1981		235 (source: 2004)
30	Malaysia	April 29	1982	McDonald's available in the first Muslim country.	139 (source: 2004)
31	Norway	November 18	1983		68 (source: December 2009)
32	Taiwan	January 28	1984	Some consider this the first outlet in China PR due to political reasons.	338 (source: 2004)
33	Andorra	June 29	1984		3 (source: 2009)
34	Wales	December 3	1984		1,250 (United Kingdom wide, 784 company owned, 465 franchised, source: 2006)
35	Finland	December 14	1984		93 (source: 2004)
36	Thailand	February 23	1985		88 (source: 2004)
37	Aruba	April 4	1985
38	Luxembourg	July 17	1985		7 (source: 2009)
39	Venezuela	August 31	1985		140 (source: 2009)
40	Italy	October 15	1985		290 (source: 2004)
41	Mexico	October 29	1985		367 (source***: 2009)
42	Cuba	April 24	1986	Available only in Guantanamo Bay and inaccessible to Cuban citizens.	1 (source: 2009)
43	Turkey	October 24	1986		133 (source: 2004)
44	Argentina	November 24	1986		187 (source: 2009)
45	Macau	April 11	1987
46	Scotland	November 23	1987		1,250 (United Kingdom wide, 784 company owned, 465 franchised, source: 2006)
47	Yugoslavia	March 24	1988	First outlet in Serbia.
48	South Korea	March 29	1988		243 (source: 2004)
49	Hungary	April 13	1988		76 (source: 2004)
50	Soviet Union/ Russia	January 31	1990	First outlet in Russia.	103 (source: 2009)
51	China	October 8	1990	First outlet in Shenzhen.	660 (December 2007)
52	Chile	November 19	1990		69 (source: 2009)
53	Indonesia	February 23	1991		75 (source: 2004)
54	Portugal	May 23	1991		91 (source: 2004)
55	Northern Ireland	October 14	1991	With a opening of a outlet in Belfast, McDonald's was now available UK-wide.	1,250 (United Kingdom wide, 784 company owned, 465 franchised, source: 2006)
56	Greece	November 12	1991		48 (source: 2004)
57	Uruguay	November 18	1991
58	Martinique	December 16	1991
59	Czechoslovakia	March 20	1992	First outlet in Czech Republic.
60	Guadeloupe	April 8	1992
61	Poland	June 17	1992		225 (source: 2009)
62	Monaco	November 20	1992
63	Brunei	December 12	1992		1 (source: 2004)
64	Morocco	December 18	1992	With the opening of an outlet in Casablanca the company had expanded into Africa and had a presence on all continents except Antarctica.
65	Northern Marianas	March 18	1993
66	Iceland	September 3	1993	Closed down in October 2009, see #Former locations	0 (source: 2009)
67	Israel	October 14	1993		131 (source: December 2007)
68	Slovenia	December 2	1993
69	Saudi Arabia	December 8	1993		60 (source: 2009)
70	Botswana	May 13	1994
71	Kuwait	June 15	1994		37 (source: 2007)
72	New Caledonia	July 26	1994
73	Oman	July 30	1994		9 (December 2009)
74	Egypt	October 20	1994		50 (source 2003)
75	Bulgaria	December 10	1994		19 (source: 2005)
76	Bahrain	December 15	1994		8 (source: 2004)
77	Latvia	December 15	1994	First outlet in the Baltics.
78	United Arab Emirates	December 21	1994
79	Estonia	April 29	1995		7 (source: December 2009)
80	Romania	June 16	1995		50 (source: 2009)
81	Malta	July 7	1995		8 (7 in Malta, 1 in Gozo) (source: 2009)
82	Colombia	July 14	1995		78 (source: November 2009)
83	Slovakia	October 14	1995		10 (source: 2004)
84	South Africa	November 11	1995		129 (source: 2009)
85	Qatar	December 13	1995		7 (source: 2003)
86	Honduras	December 14	1995
87	Saint Martin	December 15	1995
88	Croatia	February 2	1996		16 (source: 2009)
89	Western Samoa	March 2	1996
90	Fiji Islands	May 1	1996		2 (source: 2001)
91	Liechtenstein	May 3	1996		1 (source: 2009)
92	Lithuania	May 31	1996		6 (source: 2002)
93	Cyprus	June 12	1996		13 (source: 2004)
94	India	October 13	1996		46 (source: 2007)
95	Peru	October 18	1996		22 (source: 2009)
96	Jordan	November 7	1996
97	Paraguay	November 21	1996		6 (source: 2009)
98	Dominican Republic	November 30	1996
99	French Polynesia	December 10	1996	First outlet in Tahiti.
100	Belarus	December 10	1996	The company claimed this as McDonald's "100th country" although this calculation included many non-sovereign territories.
101	Ukraine	May 28	1997		57 (source: 2007)
102	Yemen	August 22	1997
103	Republic of Macedonia	September 6	1997
104	Ecuador	October 9	1997		10 (source: 2007)
105	Réunion	December 14	1997
106	Isle of Man	December 15	1997
107	Suriname	December 18	1997
108	Moldova	April 30	1998
109	Nicaragua	July 11	1998	McDonald's outlets ceased operation during the Nicaraguan civil war and re-established a presence in 1998 after an absence of two decades.
110	Lebanon	September 18	1998
111	Pakistan	September 19	1998		25 (source: 2005)
112	Sri Lanka	October 16	1998
113	Georgia	February 5	1999
114	San Marino	July 6	1999
115	Gibraltar	August 13	1999
116	Azerbaijan	November 6	1999
117	French Guiana	February 22	2000
118	American Samoa	September 29	2000
119	Mauritius	July 4	2001
120	Western Sahara	September 15	2002
121	Kazakhstan	January 1	2003
122	Mayotte	May 1	2003
123	Montenegro	June 1	2004	First outlet in Podgorica.
124	Iraq	August 10	2006	One location in Baghdad, but there is a knockoff called MaDonal.	1 (source: 2006)
125	Zimbabwe	November 10	2007	First outlet in Harare.
126	Algeria	December 1	2008	First outlet in Algiers.
127	Bosnia and Herzegovina	October 9	2009	First outlet in Sarajevo.

Former locations

One of the three McDonald's restaurants in Iceland before their closing

1. (1994 - two days) Iran
2. (1996 - six months) Barbados [1] - slow sales
3. (1997-2002) Bolivia [2] - closed due to slow sales and cost
4. (1997-2003) Trinidad and Tobago [3]
5. (1985-1995) Bermuda [4] - government influence
6. (1995-2005) Jamaica [5]
7. (1993-2009) Iceland [6] - Closed down by Icelandic affiliate Lyst ehf citing prohibitive costs of importing foreign foodstuffs as required by McDonald's after the 2008–2009 Icelandic financial crisis. Its former McDonald's outlets will be re-branded as its own chain of Metro restaurants offering similar service and menus with domestically produced ingredients.

Countries without McDonald's locations

Ask Yahoo! compared the United States Department of State's list of independent states to a list of franchises on the McDonald's website, and derived that the following countries don't have McDonald's locations.[7]

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (15 out of 35 countries)

• Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Bermuda, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago

In addition there is a McDonald's restaurant in the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, land leased from Cuba that hosts a US Naval facility.

NORTH AMERICA (1 out of 23 countries)

• Greenland

EUROPE (7 out of 48 countries)

• Albania, Armenia, Northern Cyprus, South Ossetia, Iceland, Vatican City and Kosovo

THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA (4 out of 19 countries) Iran, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia.

ASIA (17 out of 30 countries)

• Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma (also known as Myanmar), Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, North Korea, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA (45 out of 48)

• Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia

OCEANIA (10 out of 14)

• Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu

Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention

In Thomas L. Friedman's 1999 book The Lexus and the Olive Tree the following observation was presented: "No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's". While that statement was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, his point was that due to globalization, countries that have made strong economic ties with one another have too much to lose to ever go to war with one another. Regardless of whether the statement is true, the conclusions to be drawn are unclear. The global expansion of McDonald's restaurants is a relatively recent phenomenon when put into the context of the history of warfare, and, with a few notable exceptions, has proceeded into relatively stable markets.

The 2008 South Ossetia war between Russia and Georgia is a counterexample to the theory, both countries having McDonald's at the time (started in 1990 and 1999, respectively).^[4] Other conflicts that provide possible counterexamples, depending on what one considers "a war", include the 1989 United States invasion of Panama, the bombing of Serbia, and the Kargil War along with ongoing skirmishes between India and factions of Pakistan over the Kashmir region.

The appearance of McDonald's does not end an existing state of war: the states of Lebanon and Israel have been under a state of war since 1973, with South Lebanon occupied until May 2000 and a significant flareup in 2006, which did not hinder the establishment of McDonald's franchises in Israel and Lebanon in 1993 and 1998, respectively. The two countries engaged in a brief state of warfare in the summer of 2006.

See also

• List of countries
• Big Mac Index
• Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention
• MaDonal

References

External links

• McDonalds countries
• Another chronology of openings
• Alternate chronology