This paper surveys potential counterparts of the ancient Egyptian concept of mAat (maat) from other cultures and summarises such cross-cultural studies as have already been completed. Its scope ranges from antiquity to the present day and across Europe, Africa, the Near East, India, China, Australia and the Americas. Paradigms that appear to approx-imate mAat are tabulated, along with ancillary terms that relate to corollaries (transcendent ideal states) and complements (manifestations in the quotidian world). No single paradigm is perfectly analogous to mAat. Some include negative elements or are predicated on a mechanistic/karmic law of retribution; others differ in cosmogonic primacy, ontological nature, eschatological aspects, importance to lifeways or the extent to which the paradigm is personified. Only Byzantium and two First Nations cultures possess a single word that seems to approximate the wide semantic spectrum of mAat; of these, only the First Nations paradigms could be considered foundational to the lifeways of the whole community.