Duncan Madden is a travel writer living in Köln, Barcelona and London.
Being smart is a hard thing to quantify, but that certainly doesn't stop people from trying. Any outcomes are sure to create debate and contention as different perspectives lend different weight to different criteria. Yet that hasn't stopped World of Card Games from wading into the debate by creating their own ranking of the smartest countries in the world.
Before we dive into the actual list of smartest countries, a look at the criteria they've used to create their rankings. According to the methodology, research analyzed data from a variety of reputable sources including the Nobel Prize Organization, World Population Review, U.K. Office for National Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. Metrics looked at include the number of Nobel Prize nominations, university rankings, average national IQ scores (using the Lynn-Becker scale) and higher education attainment levels. You can see the full methodology at the end of this article.
According to World of Card Games, Switzerland is the smartest country in the world, scoring 92.02 out of 100 in its ranking criteria. One of the wealthiest and most stunning places on Earth, it appears this tiny European nation of fewer than nine million inhabitants can also now add smartest to its list of claims.
Collectively the Swiss boast 1,099 Nobel Prize nominations and an average IQ of 99.24. In terms of education, 40.02% of inhabitants hold at least a bachelor's degree or equivalent while 18.05% hold a master's degree or equivalent. No fewer than 32 of Switzerland's universities have also received Nobel Prize nominations.
The ranking is dominated by European countries, with the U.S. the only non-European country to make the top ten. The U.S. sits in third spot with an overall score of 89.18, just losing out to the U.K. in second with 89.40.
Both nations excel particularly in terms of the number of people with Nobel Prize nominations -- the U.K. with 2,392 and the U.S. with an incredible 5,717. The U.S. also tops the list of universities with Nobel Prize nominations -- 256, exactly double the U.K.'s 128. It's in the IQ and education that the U.K. noses in front though, with the average U.K. IQ of 99.12 beating out the U.S. average of 97.43.
Further down the ranking, the Netherlands comes in fourth position and is the only country in the top five to break the century barrier for IQ, with an average of 100.74. Only Finland's population in 10th place beat the Dutch with an average IQ of 101.20.
An interesting anomaly is Germany, which ranks very highly for Nobel Prize nominations and IQ (matching the Netherlands), but whose score is brought down by the low percentage of adults educated to bachelor's degree level or higher. This is particularly surprising considering Germany's long-held standing as one of the leading academic centers of the world.
Looking at the full ranking it's clear to say that the huge number of Nobel Prize nominations skews both the U.S. and U.K. data enough to put them higher up the list than the rest of the data would suggest.
This historic weighting of Nobel nominees and winners to a handful of countries (Germany also ranks close to the U.K. and U.S.) is a legacy of the historic freedom and funding afforded to their education institutes reaching back to the mid-20th century. Science funding experts point to basic science as the source of most long-term scientific breakthroughs, which is what Nobel Prizes tend to recognize and reward.
Marc Kastner, a physicist in California and founding president of the Science Philanthropy Alliance, told the American Institute of Physics that Nobel Prizes are a "lagging indicator" explaining that "They show us what we were doing right decades ago."
The outcome then is clear - while a ranking is a great way to give context to the concept of cleverness and show how different countries develop smart, capable citizens, it is certainly not definitive. Intelligence comes in many different forms far removed from academia, acknowledgement or arguable forms of measurement.
Culture and society, freedom of thought and opportunity all play a significant role in how individuals and entire societies think and how they uncover and solve problems and challenges. Think of this ranking more as a talking point about how we can use different approaches and skills born from very different lived experiences to create a smarter planet for everyone.
World of Card Games conducted a study to determine the smartest countries globally. The research analyzed data from various reputable sources, including the Nobel Prize Organization, World Population Review, and international educational databases.
The study examined the following key metrics:
Each metric was normalized on a scale of 0-100, with 100 being the best-performing country in that category. The overall Smart Capital Score was calculated by taking a weighted average of these normalized scores, with Nobel Prize nominations and educational attainment given slightly higher weightings.
Data sources include:
For countries with limited data, the most recent available information was used, and adjustments were made to ensure fair comparisons across all entities.