Azerbaijan Rises to 51st Place in Global IQ Rankings

Azerbaijan has ascended to 51st place in the newly released International IQ Registry rankings for 2025, marking a significant improvement from its 84th position last year. The rankings, based on data collected from 1,393,066 individuals worldwide who completed the same IQ test in 2024, have sparked debates over their accuracy and methodology.

The rankings crowned China as the global leader in average IQ, followed by Iran in second place and South Korea in third. Russia achieved a notable rise to sixth place, while Armenia secured ninth place, and Georgia ranked 21st. Turkey was placed 46th, and Kazakhstan landed at 66th. The survey analyzed IQ data across 127 countries, revealing consistent patterns of higher averages in East Asia, moderate levels in Europe, Western Asia, and North America, and lower averages in parts of Africa and Latin America.

While Azerbaijan's rise in the rankings has drawn attention, critics argue such a sharp improvement is unlikely to result solely from educational or socio-economic changes within a single year. Observers note similar anomalies with other countries, including Armenia’s leap to ninth place from outside the top 20 in 2024, and Russia’s dramatic jump from 26th to sixth over the same period.

"Public education levels and intellectual benchmarks cannot transform this quickly without systemic interventions," commented a researcher from Poland Insider.

These discrepancies have fueled skepticism, particularly in the case of Ukraine, which ranked 100th. Ukrainian experts have suggested that coordinated online attacks by bots, possibly originating from Russia, may have intentionally sabotaged Ukraine’s performance. They argue that bots disguised as Ukrainians might have submitted deliberately low scores to distort results.

The rankings affirm long-standing regional trends, with East Asian countries consistently dominating the top positions. However, Japan, a past leader and a technological powerhouse, surprisingly fell out of the top 10, raising further questions about the test's methodology.

In Europe, Poland’s placement at 40th, with an average IQ of 99.45, was met with skepticism from domestic media outlets, which called into question the survey’s statistical validity.

Much of the criticism revolves around the platform's reliance on voluntary participation through a single test administered online. Critics argue this approach makes the rankings vulnerable to manipulation, selective sampling, and even fraudulent account creation.

“Given the ease of creating fake accounts or incentivizing participation, these rankings might reflect more about internet activity and geopolitical tactics than genuine intellectual metrics,” the Poland Insider suggested in an editorial.

For Azerbaijan, the move to 51st place aligns with its broader ambitions to project itself as a rapidly modernizing state. However, experts caution against interpreting the ranking as a definitive measure of the nation’s intellectual development.

“While any improvement is commendable, such a dramatic rise should prompt scrutiny of the metrics used. A single year is insufficient for widespread changes in public intellectual capacity,” said an education policy expert.

https://international-iq-test.com/en/test/IQ_by_country