Canada is one of the world's 'smartest countries' & the US didn't even make the list
If you've ever argued with an American about which country is superior, here's some new ammo: a fresh list of the world's smartest countries puts Canada in the global top 10, while the United States doesn't crack the list at all.
The new ranking from TradingPlatforms goes beyond stereotypes to measure how countries actually learn, innovate, and share knowledge. It looks at three main areas: how students performed on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 tests in math, reading, and science; the number of scientific research papers published in 2024; and each nation's average intelligence quotient (IQ) score. Together, these factors create a "Smartness Score" that ranks countries based on education, research, and brainpower.
Here's how Canadian minds fared.
Canada's standing
Canada finished 10th in the world, with a Smartness Score of 55.4/100. That's thanks to strong PISA results (506 average) and a solid research output of more than 4,500 published papers in 2024. Our national average IQ sits at 101.7, slightly above the global baseline of 100.
The world's top 20 smartest countries (2025)
According to the Smartness Score, here's how the global top 20 rounded out:
- 1. Hong Kong – 94.0
- 2. Singapore – 81.6
- 3. Switzerland – 72.2
- 4. Taiwan – 66.3
- 5. Japan – 64.4
- 6. South Korea – 64.3
- 7. Iceland – 59.1
- 8. Denmark – 57.9
- 9. Australia – 57.8
- 10. Canada – 55.4
- 11. Finland – 55.2
- 12. Estonia – 54.7
- 13. Sweden – 54.4
- 14. New Zealand – 53.4
- 15. Slovenia – 53.0
- 16. Netherlands – 51.9
- 17. Austria – 51.8
- 18. United Kingdom – 51.2
- 19. Belgium – 51.2
- 20. Spain – 50.3
Notably missing? The United States, which produced over 31,000 research papers in 2024, but ranked lower overall once population, student performance, and IQ scores were factored in.
How countries rank by IQ alone
The dataset also broke out results by average IQ. Here, Canada comes in 11th place worldwide with an average of 101.65, putting us ahead of the U.S. (25th, at 99.74).
Here are the top 20 IQ scores globally.
- 1. Taiwan – 107.1
- 2. Hong Kong – 107.06
- 3. South Korea – 106.43
- 4. Japan – 106.4
- 5. Singapore – 105.14
- 6. Mongolia – 102.86
- 7. Australia – 102.57
- 8. Spain – 102.3
- 9. New Zealand – 102.08
- 10. Slovenia – 101.96
- 11. Canada – 101.65
- 12. Thailand – 101.52
- 13. France – 101.42
- 14. Serbia – 100.86
- 15. Italy – 100.84
- 16. Switzerland – 100.75
- 17. Georgia – 100.59
- 18. Malaysia – 100.48
- 19. Finland – 100.3
- 20. Vietnam – 100.12
East Asia dominates both lists, with Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea consistently outperforming the global average. So while Canada may not be outsmarting Asia anytime soon, it's still pretty sweet to top our biggest rival.
You can explore the entire TradingPlatforms report here.
AI tools may have been used to support the creation or distribution of this content; however, it has been carefully edited and fact-checked by a member of MTL Blog's Editorial team. For more information on our use of AI, please visit our Editorial Standards page.
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