UNIMA (Union Internationale de la Marionnette - International Puppetry Association) was founded in Prague in 1929 (the then Czechoslovak magazine Loutkář was UNIMA's first official journal in years 1929–1930). In 1981, the French puppeteer Jacques Félix moved UNIMA's headquarters to Charleville-Mézières, France, location of the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes since 1972. UNIMA is affiliated to UNESCO and it is a member of the International Theatre Institute.

National centers

There are National centers throughout the world,^[1] which include:

• UNIMA-USA founded by Jim Henson in 1966. In 1992 the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta became the headquarters for UNIMA-USA
• UNIMA Australia
• UNIMA Pakistan
• British UNIMA
• UNIMA France - THEMAA
• UNIMA Spain

UNIMA World Congresses

World congresses have been held in:^[2]

• 1929: Prague (Presidency: Jindřich Veselý)
• 1929: Paris
• 1930: Liège
• 1933: Ljubljana (New presidency: Josef Skupa) (New General Secretary: Jan Malík)
• 1957: Prague (New presidency: Max Jacob)
• 1958: Bucharest
• 1960: Bochum-Braunschweig
• 1962: Warsaw
• 1966: Munich
• 1969: Prague (New presidency: Jan Bussell)
• 1972: Charleville-Mézières (New General Secretary: Henryk Jurkowski)
• 1976: Moscow (New presidency: Sergej Obrazcov)
• 1980: Washington D.C. (New General Secretary: Jacques Felix)
• 1984: Dresden (New presidency: Henryk Jurkowski)
• 1988: Nagoya
• 1992: Ljubljana (New presidency: Sirppa Sivori-Asp)
• 1996: Budapest
• 2000: Magdeburg (New presidency: Margareta Niculescu)
• 2004: Rijeka (New presidency: Massimo Schuster) (New General Secretary: Miguel Arreche)
• 2008: Perth (New presidency: Dadi Pudumjee) (New General Secretary: Jacques Trudeau)
• 2012: Chengdu
• 2016: Tolosa
• 2020: Bali : Holds non-face-to-face online a year later because of COVID-19
• 2025: To be held in Chuncheon