Number of candidates per country of origin

Introduction

This report lists the numbers of candidates from each of the various countries of origin reported by high-range I.Q. test candidates since the mid-1990s. A household remark: There may be countries in this table that no longer exist, like "Serbia and Montenegro", "Yugoslavia", and "Netherlands Antilles". If you are reading this and think you are listed as being from one of those but prefer to be on record as originating from a currently extant country, let me know so that it can be altered in the database. Although technically one's country of origin may well be a no longer existing country, in some cases it may be better to specify which current country it concerns.

Number of candidates per country of origin

Rank	Country	n
1	United_States	481
2	Netherlands	189
3	Germany	100
4	Sweden	87
5	United_Kingdom	71
6	Finland	56
7	Canada	50
8	Belgium	44
9	France	40
10	India	35
11	Italy	34
12	Spain	34
13	Greece	31
14	Australia	28
15	China	27
16	Korea_South	26
17	Japan	22
18	Turkey	22
19	Brazil	21
20	Denmark	21
21	Poland	20
22	Norway	18
23	Austria	17
24	Mexico	13
25	Switzerland	10
26	Argentina	9
27	Portugal	9
28	South_Africa	9
29	Bulgaria	8
30	Israel	8
31	New_Zealand	8
32	Romania	8
33	Singapore	8
34	Philippines	7
35	Thailand	7
36	Yugoslavia	7
37	Russia	6
38	Slovenia	6
39	Bosnia_and_Herzegovina	5
40	Czech_Republic	5
41	Hong_Kong	5
42	Iran	5
43	Nigeria	5
44	Croatia	4
45	Malaysia	4
	Country unknown	1337

N = 3013 (countries with fewer than 4 candidates have been left out of the above table for reasons of privacy)

r_{number of candidates per country × national average I.Q. per country as published by Lynn and Vanhanen}: 0.21 (n = 77)

Conclusion

The low but almost significant correlation with national average I.Q.'s shows that high-range tests tend to draw somewhat more candidates from countries with higher average I.Q.'s. For a proper understanding one should realize that the population sizes of the countries have not been controlled for, so this correlation could be (partly) caused by the larger populations of the countries with higher average I.Q.'s.

In this context, one should also consider the highly significant yet tiny correlation of test scores with national average I.Q.'s as routinely reported in the statistical reports (median r = .05 over 73 tests with a total of approximately 2500 score-country pairs). So, candidates from high-I.Q. countries score only very, very slightly higher than candidates from low-I.Q. countries, but there are more of them. This pattern of correlations is compatible with the following two mechanisms occurring in combination:

High-range tests draw candidates from a certain constant I.Q. range irrespective of their countries of origin; this mechanism would cause there to be more candidates from countries with higher average I.Q.'s, and would cause a zero correlation of test scores with national average I.Q.'s;
High-range tests draw more candidates from countries with higher population sizes and/or better infrastructure and access to the tests; this mechanism would cause a positive correlation of test scores with national average I.Q.'s, and would also contribute to the positive correlation between participation per country and national average I.Q., because the countries with higher national I.Q.'s are somewhat more populous on the whole.

Addition

This report seems the right place to include the following results, based on national average I.Q.'s reported by Lynn and Vanhanen in past publications, and the estimated national population sizes as per 2022 (Worldometers):

World average I.Q. weighted by population sizes: 88.4
Total population size of countries included in calculation: 7834.1 million
Number of countries included in calculation: 193

Since especially some countries with low national average I.Q.'s are growing explosively, this world average I.Q. can be expected to drop further.

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