The large

We review recent progress in the study of the large $$N_c$$ limit of gauge theories from lattice simulations. The focus is not only the planar limit but also the size of $${{\mathcal {O}}}(N_c^{-1})$$ corrections for values of $$N_c\gtrsim 3$$. Some concrete examples of the topics we include are tests of large-$$N_c$$ factorization, the topological susceptibility, the glueball, meson and baryon spectra, the chiral dependence of masses and decay constants, and weak matrix elements related to the $$\varDelta I=1/2$$ rule in kaon decays