TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Residents of Taiwan ranked No. 1 globally in average IQ for the latest Worldwide IQ Test.
On May 16, Finnish enterprise Wiqtcom Inc. released the results of its Worldwide IQ test for 2022. Coming in first place out of over 100 countries was Taiwan, with an average IQ of 116.07.
Japan took second place with an average IQ of 112.69, followed by Hungary with 111.42, South Korea with 111.36, Iran with 111.33, Hong Kong with 111.01, Serbia with 110.09, Italy with 110.87, Vietnam with 109.37, and Finland rounding out the top 10 with 109.02.
The World IQ Test website said IQ test-takers in Taiwan scored an "astonishing" average IQ score of 116.07. This was a substantial improvement on Taiwan's average score of 106.47 in 2019.
In that year, Taiwan came a very close second to Japan's 106.49, with just .02 points separating the average IQ scores for the two countries. Japan's ITMedia acknowledged Taiwan's superior score and pointed out the country as "one of the most highly educated societies in the world."
The Japanese media outlet said the university entrance rate in 2020 was 84.2% and noted that a large number of Taiwanese college students go on to graduate school. It observed that Taiwan's Minister without Portfolio Audrey Tang (唐鳳) is a "genius minister with an IQ of 180."
However, the authors of the results of the World IQ Test cautioned that the score for Taiwan was a relatively low sample size. In addition, the standard deviation for Taiwan at 14.26 was higher than Japan's 12.16.
