Countries That Love Online Chess The Most

Chess truly is an international game. It was invented in India and then spread to the Middle East and Europe. A dozen countries, as large as the United States or India and as small as the Netherlands or Armenia, can brag about producing a world champion.

But just how popular and how global is chess? We crunched some numbers about the popularity of chess across the world in terms of Chess.com accounts. Here is what we found.

Note: Statistics as of March 2025.

• Most Chess.com Members
• Most Members Per Capita
• Most Active Users
• Highest-Rated Users
• Chess.com As A Country
• Openings
• Conclusion

Which countries have the most chess players?

For our first map, here are the countries with the most Chess.com members. Because these figures are based on self-reporting, they may not be completely accurate... but most of you are registering with the country you're actually in, right? Right??

No surprises in the top two, with the United States and India, at 64 million combined members, making up about one-third of the Chess.com population.

Which countries have the most chess players per capita?

Of course, the most populous countries are generally going to have the most chess players, but that's not exactly the case. China's 1.7 million Chess.com members are more than most countries, but a drop in the bucket compared to its population of more than 1.4 billion. The next map shows membership as a percentage of the population.

The farther north you go, the smaller the populations may get, but that doesn't make chess any less popular per person. By the time you hit Scandinavia, you find peak pandemonium: One-third of Iceland and one-quarter of Norway can be found on Chess.com, with Sweden and Denmark not far behind at about one-sixth.

Here's the top 10 (again min. 100,000 population) in table form:

Which countries have the most active chess players?

The answer here is Iceland and Norway again. On any day of a month, more than one percent of each country's population is active on Chess.com!

Which countries have the best chess players?

You might be surprised at the answer to this question, based on the average rating on Chess.com in Blitz and in Rapid.

Third by members per capita and first in Elo rating... who knew that chess was so big in the Seychelles!? It is interesting to see a lot of the same countries on this list and the per capita list (Iceland, Norway, and Canada in addition to Seychelles).

Chess.com As A Country

Speaking of countries, as Chess.com grows, we keep passing membership milestones. After starting out with two members (@erik and @jay!), we're now larger than almost every country in the world. Back when we hit 100 million members, that figure would have ranked 16th across the globe. Now, Chess.com is easily in the top 10. 

In fact, in more recent data, we're even larger than Brazil. (You're next, Nigeria!)

Do French chess players play the French Defense?

How often do people from a country play an opening named for their country? Well, it depends on the size of the country and the popularity of the opening. But, as one example, the French Defense is clearly more popular in French-speaking countries... including France itself! Of the top 10 countries in terms of the percentage of their games that begin with the French, six speak the language:

But openings aren't always so popular in the country they are named for. The Netherlands ranks just 20th among countries where the Dutch Defense is popular; England is just 26th among English Opening-playing countries. And take a look at the top three countries for the Italian Game—no Italy, but there are:

Conclusion

Chess is an amazing game, so it is no surprise that it is so popular across the entire world. What other information would you like to see in an article like this?

What is your favorite country-chess stat or fact? Let us know in the comments!