This list of aircraft carriers contains aircraft carriers listed alphabetically by name. An aircraft carrier is a warship with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft, that serves as a seagoing airbase.
Included in this list are ships which meet the above definition and had an official name (in italicized) or designation (non-italicized), regardless of whether they were or were not ordered, laid down, completed, or commissioned.
Not included in this list are the following:
Aircraft cruisers, also known as aviation cruisers, cruiser-carriers, flight deck cruisers, and hybrid battleship-carriers, which combine the characteristics of aircraft carriers and surface warfare ships, because they primarily operated helicopters or floatplanes and did not act as a floating airbase. Examples include the British Tiger, Japanese Ise, French Jeanne d'Arc, Soviet Moskva, and Italian Andrea Doria classes.
Amphibious assault ships, also known as commando carriers, helicopter carriers, landing helicopter assault ships, landing helicopter docks, landing platform docks, and landing platform helicopters. Although they have flight decks and look like aircraft carriers, they primarily operate helicopters and do not act as a floating airbase. Examples include the US Wasp, British Ocean, Japanese Akitsu Maru, and French Mistral classes.
So-called "landing craft carriers" such as USS LST-906, which were modified amphibious landing ships, because they could not recover their aircraft.
Seaplane tenders and seaplane carriers, because they could not land aircraft.
Submarine aircraft carriers, because they had no flight deck and could not land their aircraft.
"In Commission" denotes the period that the ship was officially in commission with the given name for the given country as an aircraft carrier as defined above.
