The Chinese language determines the order of the Parade of Nations.

Jamaica between Eritrea and Belgium. Britain after Latvia. Madagascar at the beginning and Morocco at the end.

What’s going on with the order of the parade of athletes at the opening ceremony?

The answer is that because the host country is China, the teams will enter based on their order in the Chinese language. That is written in characters — think of them as little abstract pictures, each representing a word — that do not follow alphabetical order.

Instead, Chinese characters are usually ranked in complexity, from the ones written with the fewest strokes or lines to the ones with the most.

So Australia, which might normally be one of the first teams in, will come almost at the end. And Ukraine and Uzbekistan, normally alphabetical also-rans, move way up in line.

Under this system, the United States lands 56th out of the 90 teams marching in.

There are a few exceptions to the order. Greece, host of the ancient Olympics, always gets to lead the parade. The host country, China, goes last. And in a new tradition, begun in Tokyo last year, future Olympic sites are also shifted to the end of the parade. That means the 2026 Winter Games host, Italy, will go second to last, just before the host nation.