List of aircraft carriers

Bow view of the US Navy's USS Gerald R. Ford, lead ship of her class, the largest carrier in the world.

HMS Queen Elizabeth, the newest and largest aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy.

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 (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-class cruisers, Japanese Hyūga-class helicopter destroyers, French cruiser Jeanne d'Arc, Soviet Moskva-class helicopter carriers, and Italian Andrea Doria-class cruisers. Vessels which meet the criteria of an aircraft carrier but are named as cruisers (or destroyers, etc.) for political or treaty reasons such as the Russian Kuznetsov-class aircraft carriers or British Invincible-class aircraft carriers are included however.
• Amphibious assault ships, also known as commando carriers, assault 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-class assault ships, Brazilian NAM Atlântico (A140), Japanese Akitsu Maru escort carrier, and French Mistral class.
• Catapult aircraft merchantmen, merchant ships which carried cargo and an aircraft catapult (no flight deck).
• Escort carriers, usually converted merchant ships, see separate List of escort carriers by country.
• "Landing craft carriers" such as USS LST-906, which were modified amphibious landing ships, because they could not recover their aircraft.
• Merchant aircraft carriers, cargo-carrying merchant ships with a full flight deck.
• 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.