This is as intriguing as they are controversial: which country can boast of being the most intelligent? More than a million people through the globe have lent themselves to a gigantic intellectual quotient (IQ) test online. The objective: to establish a global classification of intelligence.
According to the 2025 results of the IQ International, the podium is dominated by Asian countries, China arriving at the top with an average IQ of 107, followed by Korea (106) and Japan (106). Iran and Singapore complete the Top 5. Europe is represented at the top of the classification by Spain (102) in tenth place, while France is in 17th place with a score of 101, knowing that an average IQ is between 90 and 110.
Conversely, Gabon, Angola and Benin close the classification with scores around 85. And in Europe, in 75th and 78th, it is Romania and Ukraine that are the lowest Qi countries. In the absence of participants, some nations, such as Andorra, the Vatican or Kosovo are not represented in this ranking.
-In general, the average IQ per country generally seems higher in East Asia. It is close to the world average in Europe, West Asia, Oceania, North America and North Africa. On the other hand, it tends to be below the average in central and southern Africa, as well as in Latin America.
Behind these figures, we find the international IQ, a site that offers anonymous participants to respond to an online IQ test. The managers of the site boast of having “the most reliable IQ test on the internet”. To establish this classification, the organization says it is using the Raven matrices method, a test considered to be “culturally neutral” because it does not use a language or specific cultural references.
However, these results must be taken with tweezers. The Raven matrices method may include biases that promote certain countries. International IQ also has other limits. First, candidates are not representative of the entire population, but only people with internet access and wishing to pass a Qi test. In addition, a national average IQ is allocated to certain countries while the number of participants is very low. For example, for Senegal, which has 18 million inhabitants, the result of the IQ international is based on only 281 participants.
The IQ test is accessible on the IQ International website. The duration of the test is around twenty to thirty minutes, specifies the organization. “Although the duration can slightly influence the result, this impact is minimal. Concentrate on problem solving,” he adds. The maximum score obtained on this test is 142, but the site does not specify what nationality was the participant.
