<P> While the number of teams which qualified for the finals has increased steadily, from 16 between 1934 and 1978, to 24 between 1982 and 1994, and finally to 32 starting from 1998, the qualification format has been basically the same throughout the history of the World Cup . The teams have been grouped continentally, and they competed for a fixed number of places, with one or two places awarded to the winners of intercontinental play - offs . </P> <P> The table below lists the numbers of spots allocated by FIFA for each continent in each tournament . If no places were allocated to a continent as per the case of Oceania prior to 1966 and Africa in 1938 - 1954 and 1966, this does not indicate an exclusion of those continents by FIFA, but rather that no country from those continents made an entry to the aforementioned Cups . </P> <P> It should be noted that a large part of Africa was under European colonial rule for the majority of the 20th century . Consequently, only three African countries were affiliated to FIFA in 1954: Egypt (since 1923), Sudan (since 1948) and Ethiopia (since 1952). Egypt entered the 1934, 1938 and 1954 Cups, but not the 1930 or 1950 Cups, while Sudan and Ethiopia did not enter the Cup until 1958 . Though an African country, Egypt entered in 1938 and 1954 in the European group, and therefore the table below gives no data about Africa for these two Cups . </P> <P> Places in the intercontinental play - offs count as 0.5 spots, and numbers in bold represent the winners of the intercontinental play - offs . "+ C" denotes an additional spot for defending champions (1938 - 2002), and "+ H" denotes an additional spot for host nations (from 1938). </P>

How do they select teams for world cup