List of countries by Nobel laureates per capita

This article lists sovereign countries, territories, and supranational unions by Nobel laureates per capita. The figures include all Nobel Prizes awarded to individuals up to and including 14 October 2019. Population figures are the current values, and the number of laureates is given per 10 million. Only sovereign countries are ranked; unranked entities are marked in italics.

All prizes

All five prizes (Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine) and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences are considered.

Rank	Entity	Nobel laureates [1]	Population (2018) [2]	Laureates/ 10 million	Laureates in last 10 years (2014-2023)
—	Faroe Islands	1	49,489	202.065	0
1	Saint Lucia	2	179,667	111.317	0
2	Luxembourg	2	590,321	33.880	0
3	Sweden	33	9,982,709	33.057	3
4	Switzerland	27	8,544,034	31.601	0
5	Iceland	1	337,780	29.605	0
6	Austria	23	8,751,820	26.280	3
7	Norway	13	5,353,363	24.284	2
8	Ireland	11	4,803,748	22.898	0
9	Denmark	13	5,754,356	22.592	1
10	United Kingdom	138	66,573,504	19.429	9
11	Hungary	15 (22-27) [3]	9,688,847	15.4173 (23.7-27.8)	2 [4]
12	Israel	13	8,452,841	15.379	1
13	East Timor	2	1,324,094	15.105	0
14	Germany	114	82,293,457	13.245	7
15	United States	409	326,766,748	11.721	48
16	Netherlands	21	17,084,459	11.707	2
17	France	75	65,233,271	10.664	7
18	Finland	5	5,542,517	9.021	1
19	Belgium	10	11,498,519	8.697	0
20	Cyprus	1	1,189,085	8.410	0
—	European Union [5]	378	444,697,104	8.005
21	Trinidad and Tobago	1	1,372,598	7.285	0
22	Canada	25	36,953,765	6.765	4
23	Australia	15	24,772,247	6.055	1
24	Bosnia and Herzegovina	2	3,503,554	5.708	0
25	New Zealand	3	5,275,380	5.686	0
26	Czech Republic	6	10,625,250	5.647	0
27	Latvia	1	1,929,938	5.182	0
28	Croatia	2	3,888,529	5.143	0
29	Poland	19	38,104,832	4.986	1
30	North Macedonia	1	2,085,051	4.796	0
31	Slovenia	1	2,108,708	4.742	0
32	Liberia	2	4,853,516	4.121	0
33	Lithuania	1	2,876,475	3.476	0
34	Italy	20	59,290,969	3.373	1
—	Tibet [6]	1	3,310,836	3.020	0
35	Japan	28	127,185,332	2.202	9
36	Belarus	2	9,452,113	2.116	2
37	Romania	4	19,580,634	2.043	1
38	Costa Rica	1	4,953,199	2.019	0
39	PLO	1	5,052,776	1.979	0
40	Portugal	2	10,291,196	1.943	0
41	Greece	2	11,142,161	1.795	0
42	South Africa	10	57,398,421	1.742	0
43	Spain	8	46,397,452	1.724	0
44	Russia	32	143,964,709	1.598	2
45	Bulgaria	1	7,036,848	1.421	0
—	Hong Kong	1	7,428,887	1.346	0
—	World [7]	919	7,632,819,325	1.204	0
46	Guatemala	2	17,245,346	1.160	0
47	Argentina	5	44,688,864	1.119	0
48	Chile	2	18,197,209	1.099	0
49	Azerbaijan	1	9,923,914	1.008	0
50	Algeria	2	42,008,054	0.476	0
51	Ukraine	2	44,009,214	0.454	1
52	Taiwan	1	23,694,089	0.422	0
53	Colombia	2	49,464,683	0.404	1
54	Egypt	4	99,375,741	0.403	0
55	South Korea	1	51,164,435	0.195	0
56	Yemen	1	28,915,284	0.346	0
57	Ghana	1	29,463,643	0.339	0
58	Venezuela	1	32,381,221	0.309	0
59	Peru	1	32,551,815	0.307	0
60	Morocco	1	36,191,805	0.276	0
61	Iraq	1	39,339,753	0.254	2
62	Turkey	2	81,916,871	0.244	1
63	Iran	2	82,011,735	0.244	0
64	Mexico	3	130,759,074	0.229	0
65	Kenya	1	50,950,879	0.196	0
66	Myanmar	1	53,855,735	0.186	0
67	DR Congo	1	84,004,989	0.119	1
68	Vietnam	1	96,491,146	0.104	0
69	Pakistan	4	200,813,818	0.300	1
70	Ethiopia	1	109,224,410 [8]	0.092	0
71	India	11	1,354,051,854	0.081	2
72	China	9	1,415,045,928	0.064	1
73	Bangladesh	1	166,368,149	0.060	0
74	Nigeria	1	195,875,237	0.051	0

By United Nations geoscheme

Region	Countries	Nobel laureates [1]	Population (2019) [8]	Laureates/ 10 million
Europe	48	561	747,182,815	7.508
Northern Europe	13	209	105,768,532	19.760
Western Europe	9	256	195,522,412	13.093
Southern Europe	16	37	152,446,950	2.427
Eastern Europe	10	59	293,444,921	2.011
Americas	55	429	1,014,721,900	4.228
Northern America	5	408	366,600,944	11.129
Latin America and the Caribbean	50	21	648,120,956	0.324
Caribbean	28	3	43,335,006	0.692
Central America	8	6	177,586,525	0.338
South America	14	12	427,199,425	0.281
Oceania	23	17	42,128,048	4.035
Australia/New Zealand	2	17	29,986,262	5.669
Oceania (ex. Aus. and NZ)	21	0	12,141,786	0.000
Melanesia	5	0	10,918,534	0.000
Micronesia	7	0	543,483	0.000
Polynesia	9	0	679,769	0.000
World [7]	236	919	7,713,468,205	1.191
Africa	58	24	1,308,064,176	0.183
Northern Africa	7	7	241,780,765	0.290
Sub-Saharan Africa	51	17	1,066,283,411	0.159
Southern Africa	5	10	66,629,894	1.501
Western Africa	17	4	391,440,147	0.102
Middle Africa	9	1	174,308,427	0.057
Eastern Africa	20	2	433,904,943	0.046
Asia	52	81	4,601,371,266	0.176
Western Asia	18	19	275,324,793	0.690
Eastern Asia	9	42	1,672,611,120	0.251
Southern Asia	9	16	1,918,211,396	0.083
South-Eastern Asia	11	4	662,011,846	0.060
Central Asia	5	0	73,212,111	0.000

Scientific prizes

Only the awards for Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences are considered.

Rank	Entity	Nobel laureates [1]	Population [2]	Laureates/ 10 million
—	Faroe Islands	1	49,489	202.065
1	Saint Lucia	1	179,667	55.659
2	Luxembourg	2	590,321	33.880
3	Switzerland	22 (18 Swiss-born)	8,811,524	(20,45) 24.967
4	Austria	19 (16)	8,751,820	20.567 (18,3)
5	Denmark	10	5,754,356	17.378
6	Sweden	17	9,982,709	17.029
8	United Kingdom	109 (88 British born)	66,573,504	16.373 (13,01)
7	Hungary	15 (20-23) [9]	9,688,847	15.385 (-23.7) [10]
9	Norway	8	5,353,363	14.944
10	Germany	92	82,293,457	11.180
11	Netherlands	19	17,084,459	11.121
12	United States	350	326,766,748	10.711
13	Israel	9	8,452,841	10.647
14	Cyprus	1	1,189,085	8.410
15	New Zealand	3	4,749,598	6.316
16	France	39	65,233,271	5.979
17	Canada	22	36,953,765	5.953
—	European Union [11]	247	443,123,600	5.574
18	Finland	3	5,542,517	5.413
19	Australia	13	24,772,247	5.249
20	Belgium	6	11,498,519	5.218
21	Latvia	1	1,929,938	5.182
22	Croatia	2	3,888,529	5.143
23	Slovenia	1	2,108,708	4.742
24	Ireland	2	4,803,748	4.163
25	Lithuania	1	2,876,475	3.476
26	Bosnia and Herzegovina	1	3,503,554	2.854
27	Czech Republic	3	10,625,250	2.823
28	Italy	13	59,290,969	2.193
29	Japan	24	126,226,568	1.901
—	Hong Kong	1	7,428,887	1.346
30	Poland	5	38,104,832	1.312
31	Russia	16	143,964,709	1.111
32	Belarus	1	9,452,113	1.058
33	Romania	2	19,580,634	1.021
34	Azerbaijan	1	9,923,914	1.008
35	Portugal	1	10,291,196	0.972
—	World [7]	697	7,632,819,325	0.913
36	South Africa	4	57,398,421	0.697
37	Argentina	3	44,688,864	0.671
38	Spain	2	46,397,452	0.431
39	Taiwan	1	23,694,089	0.422
40	Venezuela	1	32,381,221	0.309
41	Morocco	1	36,191,805	0.276
42	Algeria	1	42,008,054	0.238
43	Ukraine	1	44,009,214	0.227
45	Turkey	1	81,916,871	0.122
46	Egypt	1	99,375,741	0.101
47	Mexico	1	130,759,074	0.076
48	India	7	1,354,051,854	0.052
49	Pakistan	3	200,813,818	0.150
50	Brazil	1	210,867,954	0.047
51	China	5	1,415,045,928	0.035

Inclusion criteria

• Prizes are also allocated to citizenship at birth countries stated on the winner's biography on the website of the Nobel Prize committee. ^[12]
• Where the website mentions multiple countries in relation to a prize winner (country of birth; country of citizenship; country of residence at time of award) each of those countries is credited as having won the prize.
• Where a prize has multiple winners, the country (or countries) of each winner are credited.
• Prizes which were declined by the winner are included.
• Prizes won by organisations are not allocated to countries.
• Winners from Belarus and Ukraine are not credited to Russia. Winners born in what was then Poland but is now Ukraine are credited to Poland.

Corrections

This is a list of corrections made to the original figures provided by BBC News:

• No award was attributed to Luxembourg, but, according to the Nobel Prize website, Gabriel Lippmann (Physics, 1908) was born in that country. ^[13]
• No award was attributed to Azerbaijan, but, according to the Nobel Prize website, Lev Landau (Physics, 1962) was born in the area that is now held by that country (then part of the Russian Empire). ^[14] The justification for this correction is that BBC News did credit Latvia for Wilhelm Ostwald's 1909 Chemistry Prize, even though his birthplace—Latvia's capital Riga—was by the time he was born (1853) also part of the Russian Empire.^{[ original research? ]}
• Australia was credited with only one Nobel laureate in Physics, but up to and including 8 October 2010 there were three Physics laureates associated with that country: William Lawrence Bragg (1915) and Aleksandr Prokhorov (1964), were both born there according to the Nobel Prize website. ^{[15] [16]} William Henry Bragg lived a significant portion of his life in Australia and while Australian citizenship did not exist until 1949 (after Bragg's death), he would have met the requirements to be an Australian citizen had it existed during the period during his lifetime. ^[17]
• BBC News correctly acknowledges South Korea as having two Nobel laureates associated with that country, but due an error in its spreadsheet only one of them is assigned to a particular prize (Peace, 2000). The one that was not specified is Charles J. Pedersen (Chemistry, 1987), who was born in Busan, according to the Nobel Prize website. ^[18]

See also

• List of Nobel laureates
• List of Nobel laureates by country
• List of Jewish Nobel laureates
• List of Christian Nobel laureates
• List of Muslim Nobel laureates
• List of nonreligious Nobel laureates

References

1. "Which country has the best brains?". BBC News. 2010-10-10. Retrieved 2010-10-10.
2. "Total Population - Both Sexes". World Population Prospects, the 2017 Revision. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, Population Estimates and Projections Section. 21 June 2017. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
3. According to Hungarian citizen law there are more: Friedman, Wìesel, Fried, Gajdusek, Politzer, Ruzicka, Prelog
4. Foundation, Tempus Public. "Katalin Karikó and Ferenc Krausz win the Nobel Prize! - Study In Hungary". www.studyinhungary.hu. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
5. Includes every credit given separately to each of the 27 EU member states. It does not include the Peace Prize given to the EU in 2012.
6. A population estimate for 2018 was calculated using the average annual population growth in the Tibet Autonomous Region between the 2000 and 2010 censuses. 2000 census population: 2,616,329 (Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China). 2010 census population: 3,002,166 (Source: Xinhua News Agency). Formula used: 3002166+(2018-2010)*(3002166-2616329)/(2010-2000)=3310835.6.
7. In this case each Nobel laureate was only counted once. Source: "Nobel Prize Facts". Nobel Foundation . Retrieved 2019-10-11.
8. "Total Population - Both Sexes". World Population Prospects, the 2019 Revision. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, Population Estimates and Projections Section. 28 August 2019. Retrieved 11 October 2019.
9. plus Stigler, Furchgott, Osheroff, who are considered half-hungarian born citizens
10. Born in Kingdom of Hungary: Vladimir Prelog & Leopold Ružička. According to Hungarian citizen law there are more: Friedman, Gajdusek & Politzer
11. Includes every credit given separately to any of the 27 EU member states.
12. "The official website of the Nobel Prize - NobelPrize.org". nobelprize.org. Archived from the original on Feb 16, 2024.
13. "Gabriel Lippmann – Biography". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on Jan 18, 2012. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
14. "Lev Landau – Biography". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on Nov 5, 2012. Retrieved 2012-06-19.
15. "Lawrence Bragg – Biography". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on Oct 20, 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-16.
16. "Aleksandr M. Prokhorov – Biography". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on Nov 5, 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-16.
17. Thwaites, Rayner (May 2017). "Report on Citizenship Law: Australia". European University Institute. hdl : 1814/46449 .
18. "Charles J. Pedersen – Facts — NobelPrize.org". Nobel Foundation . Retrieved 2019-10-14.

Further reading

• Emeka Nwabunnia, Bishop Emeka Ebisi (2007), The Nobel prize (1901-2000): handbook of landmark records, University Press of America, ISBN   978-0-7618-3573-8

External links

• All Nobel Laureates
• "Nobel Prizes by Country - Evolution of National Nobel Prize Shares in the 20th Century, by Citizenship" (Juergen Schmidhuber, 2010)