Smartest Countries 2022

Because so many criteria may be considered, determining which nations are the most intelligent in the world is challenging.

• Is the nation with the most literate inhabitants the smartest?
• Wouldn’t the world’s brightest nations be those with the highest average IQ scores?
• Alternatively, is the brightest nation the one with the most significant proportion of very intelligent individuals in it?
• Could it be the nation where the most Nobel Prizes have been awarded?

If only a single standardized test could be developed and administered that could reliably evaluate every facet of intelligence in every individual in every culture (and speaking every language) in every country, that would be another way to determine which countries had the brightest citizens.

Any effort to arrive at a single, unambiguous solution will always run into problems. Despite this, population and intelligence specialists are coming up with new methodologies and approaches that get them ever closer to a realistic rank of the world’s most intelligent nations.

Richard Lynn, a British psychologist, has undertaken some of the most extensively documented research on global intelligence.

As part of a 2019 research project titled The Intelligence of Nations, Lynn and partner David Becker assessed the average IQ of inhabitants in 132 countries and computed predicted scores for the remaining 70.

Here are the first few items on the list (scroll to the table at the bottom of the page for the rest).

Ulster Institute’s 2019 list of the world’s most intelligent countries:

1. Japan – 106.49
2. Taiwan – 106.47
3. Singapore – 105.89
4. Hong Kong (China) – 105.37
5. China – 104.10
6. South Korea – 102.35
7. Belarus – 101.60
8. Finland – 101.20
9. Liechtenstein – 101.07
10. Netherlands & Germany (tie) – 100.74

Neglecting to disclose that Lynn’s findings typically provoke much controversy would be irresponsible. In the absence of concrete evidence, several critics question Lynn’s methodologies for calculating estimations.

Lynn, a well-known eugenicist, accused others of manipulating his data to support factually incorrect views that encourage white supremacist ideologies.

The Relationship Between Education and Intelligence

Intelligent people tend to emerge from societies with well-developed educational systems, and this relationship between education and intelligence has been established for many decades now.

Because of this, some research compares IQ levels across nations based on their educational attainment.

In 2018, the OECD issued its triennial PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) findings, which compared the exam scores of more than 600,000 pupils in 79 countries in reading, mathematics, and science. The top ten are shown below.

The OECD PISA 2018 lists the ten smartest countries in reading, mathematics, and science:

1. China – 555, 591, 590
2. Singapore – 549, 569, 551
3. Macau (China) – 525, 558, 544
4. Hong Kong (China) – 524, 551, 517
5. Estonia – 523, 523, 530
6. Canada – 520, 512, 518
7. Finland – 520, 507, 522
8. Ireland – 518, 500, 496
9. Korea – 514, 526, 519
10. Poland – 512, 516, 511

According to another research, OECD statistics, including adult education level, ranked Canada as the most intellectual country in the world. Second place went to Japan, while third place went to Israel.

Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, & Finland round up the top five.

For example, the 2017 Intelligence Capital Index (ICI) used a variety of factors to determine not only which countries had the smartest citizens but also which countries were most likely to use their citizens’ intelligence to expand the frontier of knowledge and/or introduce the technologies of the knowledge economy… Big Data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, etc.

The United States was the only country to achieve an A+ ranking in the ICI survey. The United States came in second, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany.

Australia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Finland, and Denmark are the top ten countries on the ICI.

Intelligence Capital Index 2017: Top 10 Countries:

1. United States – 74.88 (A+)
2. United Kingdom – 64.19 (A)
3. Germany – 64.18 (A)
4. Australia – 63.96 (A)
5. Singapore – 63.60 (A)
6. Sweden – 61.58 (A)
7. Switzerland – 61.57 (A)
8. Canada – 61.15 (A)
9. Finland – 60.45 (A)
10. Denmark – 60.25 (A)

Also See: Most Educated Countries 2022

This is a list of 10 countries with the most intelligent citizens:

1. Japan (106.48)
2. Taiwan (106.47)
3. Singapore (105.89)
4. Hong Kong (105.37)
5. China (104.1)
6. South Korea (102.35)
7. Belarus (101.6)
8. Finland (101.2)
9. Liechtenstein (101.07)
10. Germany (100.74)