The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian: Nobels fredspris) is one of five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel. According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." Alfred Nobel's will stated that the prize should be awarded by a committee of five people elected by the Norwegian Parliament. The Peace Prize is presented annually in Oslo, in the presence of the king, on December 10 (the anniversary of Nobel's death), and is the only Nobel Prize not presented in Stockholm.

"In Oslo, the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee presents the Nobel Peace Prize in the presence of the King of Norway. Under the eyes of a watching world, the Nobel Laureate receives three things: a diploma, a medal and a document confirming the prize amount." The Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony is held at the Oslo City Hall, followed the next day by the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, which is broadcast to more than 450 million households in over 150 countries around the world. The concert has received worldwide fame and the participation of top celebrity hosts and performers.

The selection of Nobel Peace Prize winners sometimes causes controversy, as it has become greatly politicized and not related to issues of peace and the list of winners includes people who formerly used violence and terrorism, but then later made exceptional concessions to non-violence in the attempt to achieve peace. Nobel died in 1896 and did not leave an explanation for choosing peace as a prize category. The categories for chemistry and physics were obvious choices as he was a trained chemical engineer.

The reason behind the peace prize is less clear. Scholars who studied Nobel have said it was Nobel's way to compensate for developing destructive forces (Nobel's inventions included dynamite and ballistite). None of his explosives, except for ballistite, were used in any war during his lifetime, although the Irish Republican Brotherhood, an Irish nationalist organisation, did carry out dynamite attacks in the 1880s and he was instrumental in turning Bofors from an iron company to an armaments company whilst he owned it.

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