The map is built from the same free, public 20-question IQ test on JobCannon that anyone can take. This page explains the scale, who is included, and where the data has known distortions.
The test and the scale
241,063 people from 196 countries have completed the 20-question test since 2026-07-15, with a country resolved from their IP address. On the map, 100 is the average score of every one of those people, and 15 points is one standard deviation across individuals — the standard way an IQ-style scale is centered. This is a relative scale across test-takers, not the calibrated IQ number an individual sees on their own JobCannon result page, which uses a different formula.
Who is on the map
A country is ranked once 300 people from it have completed the test — 53 countries clear that bar today. Countries with 100–299 test-takers show as "almost on the map" on the homepage. Below 100, a country isn't shown at all.
What this is not
People choose to take this test online after finding JobCannon, so every country's number reflects who takes a free IQ test on the internet, in whichever language JobCannon offered them — not a scientifically sampled national average. Differences between countries are also differences in who is online, who clicks through, and which language they were tested in. Treat the ranking as "how our test-takers scored," not an official measurement of any country's population.
The language effect
Within most on-map countries, we compared people who took the test in that country's default language against people from the same country who took it in a different language (both groups need at least 30 people to be included below). In English-default countries, non-native takers who chose English tend to score a little higher than local-language takers — likely a fluency-based self-selection effect. In several Arabic- and Farsi-language countries the pattern runs the other way: local-language takers score noticeably lower than people from the same country who took the test in another language. The most likely explanation is translation quality on those question sets, not a difference in ability — treat any country in the negative rows below with that caveat.
Country
Local language
Local-language score
Other-language score
Gap
Taiwan
English
122.2 (n=211)
107.1 (n=133)
+15.1
Singapore
English
109.3 (n=214)
99.1 (n=223)
+10.2
India
English
106.5 (n=6,052)
97.0 (n=274)
+9.5
United Kingdom
English
108.2 (n=2,266)
99.5 (n=202)
+8.7
United States
English
108.8 (n=6,109)
101.2 (n=666)
+7.6
Bangladesh
English
104.8 (n=264)
97.7 (n=72)
+7.1
Canada
English
108.4 (n=1,229)
101.8 (n=190)
+6.6
Netherlands
Dutch
109.1 (n=698)
105.0 (n=705)
+4.1
Malaysia
English
104.4 (n=207)
100.3 (n=115)
+4.1
Israel
Hebrew
103.2 (n=2,705)
99.6 (n=457)
+3.6
Japan
Japanese
108.4 (n=27,424)
105.2 (n=234)
+3.2
Germany
German
104.8 (n=2,486)
101.7 (n=1,327)
+3.1
Ukraine
Ukrainian
101.5 (n=2,248)
98.7 (n=568)
+2.8
France
French
104.2 (n=1,106)
102.1 (n=345)
+2.1
Türkiye
Turkish
100.7 (n=12,200)
98.6 (n=974)
+2.1
Australia
English
109.1 (n=1,444)
108.0 (n=36)
+1.1
Italy
Italian
105.9 (n=6,721)
105.7 (n=313)
+0.2
Poland
Polish
105.4 (n=236)
105.8 (n=174)
-0.4
Spain
Spanish
105.1 (n=2,406)
105.5 (n=239)
-0.4
Azerbaijan
Persian
99.9 (n=693)
102.0 (n=77)
-2.1
Mexico
Spanish
101.5 (n=1,227)
103.7 (n=74)
-2.2
South Korea
Korean
106.6 (n=12,247)
109.7 (n=116)
-3.1
Sweden
Swedish
101.3 (n=2,148)
104.5 (n=309)
-3.2
Algeria
Arabic
97.7 (n=4,154)
101.0 (n=106)
-3.3
Egypt
Arabic
100.2 (n=8,816)
103.7 (n=325)
-3.5
Oman
Arabic
96.7 (n=663)
100.4 (n=46)
-3.7
Morocco
Arabic
96.4 (n=1,595)
100.2 (n=137)
-3.8
Thailand
Thai
99.7 (n=3,015)
104.2 (n=139)
-4.5
Tunisia
Arabic
99.2 (n=1,328)
104.5 (n=110)
-5.3
Indonesia
Indonesian
93.6 (n=77,196)
99.4 (n=1,108)
-5.8
Argentina
Spanish
102.3 (n=645)
108.6 (n=35)
-6.3
United Arab Emirates
Arabic
97.7 (n=330)
104.0 (n=171)
-6.3
Brazil
Portuguese
98.9 (n=1,034)
105.4 (n=142)
-6.5
Jordan
Arabic
100.3 (n=1,432)
107.3 (n=58)
-7
Iraq
Arabic
93.5 (n=6,452)
100.8 (n=91)
-7.3
Lebanon
Arabic
96.0 (n=367)
104.8 (n=67)
-8.8
Kuwait
Arabic
95.3 (n=435)
105.5 (n=31)
-10.2
Saudi Arabia
Arabic
94.1 (n=7,522)
104.3 (n=163)
-10.2
Kazakhstan
Kazakh
93.8 (n=339)
105.3 (n=52)
-11.5
Iran
Persian
98.5 (n=4,972)
110.5 (n=67)
-12
Checking the scores against school results and income
One worry about any country ranking built from an online test is that translation, not people, drives some of the gaps. To take translation out, this section uses a different score: only people who took the English version, so every country faced the same questions in the same language. Those people are a self-selected slice (people who chose English), not the whole country, and English-version scores run higher than the map's mixed-language scores. It is a check on the data, not a second ranking.
27countries with 100+ English-version takers each
0.72rank correlation with university enrollment
0.70rank correlation with school results
0.68rank correlation with GDP per person
0.68rank correlation with Human Capital Index
0.62rank correlation with R&D (% of GDP)
-0.17rank correlation with Gini inequality (near zero)
School results
World Bank harmonized test scores, which put PISA, TIMSS and other international assessments on one scale.
Rank correlation 0.70 (95% range 0.42–0.85), 27 countries.
Swipe sideways to see the whole chart.
Income per person (GDP per capita, PPP)
GDP per person at purchasing-power parity, latest year available (World Bank).
Rank correlation 0.68 (95% range 0.35–0.89), 27 countries.
Swipe sideways to see the whole chart.
University enrollment
Gross tertiary education enrollment ratio, % of age cohort (World Bank).
Rank correlation 0.72 (95% range 0.45–0.88), 26 countries.
Swipe sideways to see the whole chart.
Research & development spending
R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP (World Bank).
Rank correlation 0.62 (95% range 0.28–0.83), 26 countries.
Swipe sideways to see the whole chart.
Income inequality (Gini index) — what does not correlate
World Bank Gini index (lower means more equal income distribution). Unlike education, GDP per person, and R&D, domestic income inequality shows almost no relationship with test scores: high-scoring countries include both low-inequality European economies (Netherlands, Germany) and higher-inequality high-income hubs (USA, Singapore).
Rank correlation -0.17 (95% range -0.55–0.26), 24 countries.
Swipe sideways to see the whole chart.
Each dot is a country with 100 or more English-version takers. The thin vertical line is the 95% range of that country's average.
The dashed line is a straight-line fit through all dots. Many countries sit well away from it.
A rank correlation of 1 would mean the countries line up perfectly, 0 would mean no pattern. Around 0.6 to 0.7 is a visible tendency with many exceptions, and with 27 countries each estimate is itself uncertain (see the ranges above).
Most dots sit above 100. In the 9 countries where English is not the main language of the test, people who chose the English version average 4.5–4.8 points above everyone tested there. That can come from translation, from who chooses English, or both; this data cannot tell them apart.
What this does not mean
These are scores of people who chose to take an online test in a given language. They are not samples of whole populations and not an official national measurement. Differences between countries here reflect who took the test, in which language, and how well it translates, as well as anything real. Nothing here shows that wealth, political system or anything else causes test scores.
Show the numbers behind all charts
Country
English-version takers
Score (95% range)
School score
GDP per person
University %
R&D % GDP
Gini
Netherlands
206
111.0 ± 1.9
520
$85,218
87%
2.3%
25.7
Greece
200
110.9 ± 1.8
469
$44,171
165%
1.5%
33.4
Singapore
147
110.8 ± 2.3
575
$153,161
97%
1.8%
–
Germany
221
110.5 ± 1.8
517
$73,957
77%
3.1%
33.7
Spain
104
109.7 ± 2.6
507
$58,064
94%
1.5%
33.4
Ireland
161
109.6 ± 1.9
521
$140,779
78%
1.6%
29.0
Hong Kong
102
109.1 ± 3.1
549
$75,342
120%
1.1%
–
United States
4,081
109.0 ± 0.4
512
$86,170
79%
3.5%
41.8
Australia
972
109.0 ± 0.9
516
$72,118
108%
1.9%
33.8
Canada
794
108.9 ± 1.0
534
$65,483
76%
1.8%
31.5
United Kingdom
1,535
108.8 ± 0.7
520
$62,839
80%
2.7%
32.4
New Zealand
260
108.6 ± 1.7
520
$55,794
77%
1.6%
–
Italy
142
108.4 ± 2.5
493
$62,293
76%
1.4%
34.3
Romania
132
108.2 ± 2.6
442
$49,077
55%
0.5%
29.8
Türkiye
106
107.4 ± 3.2
478
$45,123
106%
1.4%
43.7
Sweden
119
107.2 ± 2.7
519
$71,222
84%
3.6%
29.3
Nigeria
173
106.7 ± 1.8
309
$9,100
–
0.3%
33.9
India
3,806
106.4 ± 0.5
399
$10,719
34%
0.7%
23.0
Finland
105
105.9 ± 2.7
534
$65,137
110%
3.1%
27.4
Egypt
196
105.6 ± 2.0
356
$19,122
38%
1.0%
28.5
Malaysia
126
105.6 ± 2.7
446
$38,836
39%
1.0%
40.7
Bangladesh
162
105.0 ± 2.0
368
$9,661
24%
–
30.9
United Arab Emirates
114
104.7 ± 2.4
448
$79,344
64%
1.5%
26.4
Philippines
448
104.1 ± 1.3
362
$11,814
47%
0.3%
39.3
South Africa
339
103.9 ± 1.5
343
$15,479
23%
0.6%
54.1
Pakistan
378
100.9 ± 1.5
339
$6,263
11%
0.2%
33.5
Indonesia
583
99.7 ± 1.4
395
$16,472
45%
0.3%
34.9
This section is a fixed snapshot: 15,712 English-version tests completed on JobCannon between 2026-07-15 and 2026-09-23, in the 27 countries with 100 or more such tests. The ranked map above refreshes nightly; this section does not. Country is inferred from the IP address. Scale: 100 = average of everyone tested with a known country, all languages, at the snapshot date; 15 points = one standard deviation of individuals. Sources: World Bank World Development Indicators (GDP per capita PPP, NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD; Harmonized Test Scores, HD.HCI.HLOS; Tertiary Enrollment, SE.TER.ENRR; Human Capital Index, HD.HCI.OVRL; R&D % of GDP, GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS; Gini Index, SI.POV.GINI). Rank correlation is Spearman; ranges are 95% bootstrap intervals.
Data handling
Only aggregate counts and averages leave this analysis — no individual rows, no anonymous IDs, no per-question statistics. Full method and the underlying dataset: jobcannon.io/research/data →
Taiwan
Singapore
India
United Kingdom
United States
Bangladesh
Canada
Netherlands
Malaysia
Israel
Japan
Germany
Ukraine
France
Türkiye
Australia
Italy
Poland
Spain
Azerbaijan
Mexico
South Korea
Sweden
Algeria
Egypt
Oman
Morocco
Thailand
Tunisia
Indonesia
Argentina
United Arab Emirates
Brazil
Jordan
Iraq
Lebanon
Kuwait
Saudi Arabia
Kazakhstan
Iran