The Smartest Countries in the World?

Published

September 6, 2013

Michael Schreiber is Credit.com's former Editor-In-Chief. He's worked in print and online news as well as documentaries for The New York Times, Frontline, ABC News, TheStreet.com and others. He attended Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where he was also an adjunct professor.

The United States may have the lion’s share of the cash, but when it comes to brains, we don’t even crack the top ten, according to one recent report. In a ranking of the countries with the highest IQs conducted by StatisticsBrain.com, the United States placed 19th with an average IQ of 98, tied with Norway, Mongolia and — gasp — France (which perhaps explains that country’s reported love of Jerry Lewis). The top spot goes to Hong Kong, while 10th place is shared by two European countries, Sweden and Switzerland, which evidently many people think are one and the same.

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Intelligence Around the Globe

According to the study, here are the top 10 smartest countries in the world:

# 10: Sweden and Switzerland (two-way tie), average IQ: 101

#6: Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Austria (four-way tie), average IQ: 102

#5: Singapore, average IQ: 103

#4: Taiwan, average IQ: 104

#3: Japan, average IQ: 105

#2: South Korea, average IQ: 106

#1: Hong Kong, average IQ: 107

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We decided that it’s not worth sharing the “dumbest” countries in the world, mainly because some consider IQ to be flawed as an objective measure of intelligence, and would therefore be arguably ill-suited to this application.

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