It is recognized by the International Orienteering Federation and the United States Olympic Committee.

[2][4] The first known competitive orienteering events in the U.S. were held from 1941 to 1943 in New Hampshire by a Finnish army officer named Piltti Heiskanen.

There were military orienteering events at West Point Military Academy in New York state by 1966 and at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia by 1967, where the Marine Corps Physical Fitness Academy's first public event was held on July 12, 1968, on Harald Wibye's color orienteering map, the first such map in the English-speaking world.

The Norwegian Wibye also hosted the first known public competitive orienteering event in the U.S. at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania on Nov. 5, 1967.

His map and compass events from 1965 to 1967 in Westchester County, NY had competitive orienteering courses added in 1968 by Wibye.