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Martial arts  usually referred as fighting arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat. Martial arts all have similar objectives: to physically defeat other persons or defend oneself or others from physical threat. Some martial arts take a great deal of their underlying theory from beliefs systems.

The martial arts evidently have roots in prehistory, the earliest evidence of systematic training in specific martial arts traditions emerges in antiquity (late 1st millennium BC) in both Asia and Europe.

The mid to late 19th century marks the beginning of the history of martial arts as modern sports developed out of earlier traditional fighting systems. In Europe, this concerns the developments of boxing and fencing as sports. In Japan, the same period marks the formation of the modern forms of judo, jujitsu, karate, and kendo (among others) based on revivals of old schools of Edo period martial arts which had been suppressed during the Meiji Restoration. Modern Muay Thai rules date to the 1920s. In China, the modern history of martial arts begins in the Nanjing decade (1930s) following the foundation of the Central Guoshu Institute in 1928 under the Kuomintang government.

Martial arts have crossed over into sports when forms of sparring become competitive, becoming a sport in its own right that is dissociated from the original combative origin, such as with western fencing. The Summer Olympic Games includes judo, taekwondo, western archery, boxing, javelin, wrestling and fencing as events, while Chinese wushu recently failed in its bid to be included, but is still actively performed in tournaments across the world. Practitioners in some arts such as kickboxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu often train for sport matches, whereas those in other arts such as aikido and Wing Chun generally spurn such competitions. Some schools believe that competition breeds better and more efficient practitioners, and gives a sense of good sportsmanship. Others believe that the rules under which competition takes place have diminished the combat effectiveness of martial arts or encourage a kind of practice which focuses on winning trophies rather than a focus such as cultivating a particular moral character.

The question of "which is the best martial art" has led to new forms of competition; the original Ultimate Fighting Championship in the U.S. was fought under very few rules allowing all fighting styles to enter and not be limited by the rule set. This has now become a separate combat sport known as mixed martial arts (MMA). Similar competitions such as Pancrase, DREAM, and Shooto have also taken place in Japan.

Some martial artists compete in non-sparring competitions such as breaking or choreographed routines of techniques such as poomse, kata and aka, or modern variations of the martial arts which include dance-influenced competitions such as tricking. Martial traditions have been influenced by governments to become more sport-like for political purposes; the central impetus for the attempt by the People's Republic of China in transforming Chinese martial arts into the committee-regulated sport of wushu was suppressing what they saw as the potentially subversive aspects of martial training, especially under the traditional system of family

The martial arts are also divided into several types rather than the art of armed combat sharp, not sharp weapons such as wood, and the art of empty hand combat. Among the types of martial arts that exist are as follows:

    1. Aikido                                                      13. Muay Thai
    2. Capoeira                                                  15. Silambam
    3. Wrestling                                                  16. Silat
    4. Hapkido                                                   17. Taekwondo
    5. Jiu Jitsu                                                    18. Taido
    6. Jogo do pau                                             19. Boxing
    7. Judo                                                        20. Tomoi
    8. Kalaripayat                                              21. Wing Tsun
    9. Karate                                                     22. Wun-hup-Kuen-Do           
   10. Kempo                                                   23. Wushu
   11. Kendo                                                    24. Thifan
   12. Kung fu                                                              
                                   

Martial arts since the 1970s has become a significant industry, a subset of the wider sport industry.

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide practice some form of martial art. Web Japan  claims there are 50 million karate practitioners worldwide.The South Korean government in 2009 published an estimate that Taekwondo is practiced by 70 million people in 190 countries.

The wholesale value of martial arts related sporting equipment shipped in the United States was estimated at 314 million USD in 2007; participation in the same year was estimated at 6.9 million (ages 6 or older, 2% of US population). R. A. Court, CEO of Martial Arts Channel, stated the total revenue of the US martial arts industry at USD 40 billion and the number of US practitioners at 30 million in 2003. Ultimate Fighting Championship generated a revenue of about USD 250 million in 2008, about 90% of the entire Mixed Martial Arts industry. World Wrestling Entertainment had a revenue of USD 1.4 billion.

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