An Olympic-size swimming pool is a swimming pool which conforms to the regulations for length, breadth, and depth made by World Aquatics (formerly FINA) for swimming at the Summer Olympics and the swimming events at the World Aquatics Championships. Different size regulations apply for other pool-based events, such as diving, synchronized swimming, and water polo. Less onerous breadth and depth regulations exist for lesser swimming competitions, but any "long course" event requires a course length of 50 metres (164 ft 0.5 in), as distinct from "short course" which applies to competitions in pools that are 25 metres (82 ft 0 in) in length (or 75 feet (22.9 m) in the United States). And If touch pads are used in competition, then the distance is relative to the touch pads at either end of the course, so that the pool itself is generally oversized to allow for the width of the pads.
An Olympic-size swimming pool is used as a colloquial unit of volume, to make approximate comparisons to similarly sized objects or volumes. It is not a specific definition, as there is no maximum limit on the depth of an Olympic pool. The value has an order of magnitude of 1 megaliter (ML). Some style guides caution against the hyperbole of describing any relatively large pool as "Olympic-size[d]".
