The 2016 Paralympics was the fifteenth Games to be held, a quadrennial competition open to athletes with physical and intellectual disabilities.

Athletes from Cape Verde,[2] Georgia,[3] Mozambique,[4] Qatar,[5] Uganda,[6] and Vietnam won their first Paralympic medals.

[9] Georgia,[3] Kazakhstan,[9] Malaysia,[10] Uzbekistan,[9] and Vietnam won their first Paralympic gold medals.

If nations remain tied, they are ranked equally and listed alphabetically by IPC country code.

In both the women's 50, freestyle S11, two bronze medals were awarded each as two swimmers set the same time in third place.