Top 10 Smartest Countries

Intelligence quotient (IQ) is a measure of human intelligence. People who want to have their IQ measured take standardized tests and receive a score that ranks their intelligence level. The higher one’s IQ score, the more intelligent that person is considered to be.

IQ scores, indicative of educational quality and resources in regions, are based on standard tests adjusted by national academic assessments and data quality considerations. IQ scores typically reflect the quality of education and resources available to people in their local geographic regions. Areas of the world with lower IQ scores are typically poorer and less developed, particularly in the area of education, compared to countries with higher IQ scores. Many researchers also use IQ to determine the smartest countries in the world.

While IQ is a common measure of intelligence, other metrics include academic test scores, the Intelligence Capital Index, and the number of Nobel Prizes won.

Only Singapore and Finland appear consistently across all three ranking lists, validating these countries’ rankings but also indicating the diversity of factors considered in measuring average IQ globally.

According to a 2019 study by researchers Richard Lynn and David Becker at the Ulster Institute, the highest average IQ scores in the world belong to the Japanese, with the citizens of Taiwan and Singapore close behind.

Top 10 Smartest Countries by IQ

Japan	106.48
Taiwan	106.47
Singapore	105.89
Hong Kong	105.37
China	104.1
South Korea	102.35
Belarus	101.6
Finland	101.2
Liechtenstein	101.07
Germany	100.74

Top 10 Smartest Countries Based on Math, Reading, and Science – OECD PISA 2022:

Singapore	1679	575	561	543
China	1605	552	543	510
Japan	1599	536	547	516
Taiwan	1599	547	537	515
South Korea	1570	527	528	515
Hong Kong	1560	540	520	500
Estonia	1547	510	526	511
Canada	1519	497	515	507
Ireland	1512	492	504	516
Switzerland	1494	508	503	483

A different OECD study, which used multiple data points for 2018, including adult education level, chose Canada as the most intelligent nation. Japan placed second, while Israel came in third. Other high-ranking nations include Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and Finland.

One of the more creative studies of intelligence is the 2017 Intelligence Capital Index, or ICI, which used several factors to determine not the smartest nations overall, but which nations were most likely to leverage their smartest citizens’ intelligence to “expand the frontier of knowledge and/or introduce the technologies and innovations of the knowledge economy … Big Data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, etc.”

In the ICI study, the United States ranked number one and was the only nation to receive an A+ rating. Coming in second place was the United Kingdom, followed by Germany in third place. Other high-ranking nations on the ICI include Australia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Finland, and Denmark.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/smartest-countries