GM-s per capita worldwide, 1. Iceland !

Sort:

urk

Feb 2, 2017

#21

A very high standard of living and long winters makes for a good chess environment.
Heck, a good proportion of Icelanders personally know a GM.

watcha

Feb 4, 2017

#22

Scotland indeed has a high number of GMs per capita. Roughly 1 ppm, which would have put it on the list around 30th place. As much as I admire Scotland, with regret I have to put forward that Scotland is not an independent country.

Here is why:

http://geography.about.com/od/politicalgeography/a/scotlandnot.htm

cap78red

Nov 18, 2017

#23

	country	average rating	GM-s	IM-s	total titled	population	GM-s per capita ppm
1	Iceland	2521	12	13	52	325010	36,92
2	Monaco	2235	1	1	10	36136	27,67
3	Andorra	2286	2	1	7	76246	26,23
4	Armenia	2659	36	23	98	3024100	11,90
5	Montenegro	2453	6	15	61	620029	9,68
6	Serbia	2583	53	108	562	7181505	7,38
7	Croatia	2581	31	61	243	4290612	7,23
8	Slovenia	2554	13	21	101	2061149	6,31
9	Latvia	2521	12	11	52	2014000	5,96
10	Georgia	2592	26	38	115	4483800	5,80
11	Hungary	2653	52	111	428	9906000	5,25
12	Israel	2631	39	49	161	8081000	4,83
13	Bulgaria	2612	35	55	138	7282041	4,81
14	Macedonia	2471	9	10	47	2062294	4,36
15	Estonia	2460	5	12	41	1286540	3,89
16	Lithuania	2476	9	15	52	2950684	3,05
17	Czech Republic	2579	30	74	272	10512900	2,85
18	Azerbaijan	2614	20	21	86	9235100	2,17
19	Bosnia & Herzegovina	2509	8	25	91	3839737	2,08
20	Sweden	2537	19	36	141	9616429	1,98
21	Norway	2554	10	29	104	5077798	1,97
22	Denmark	2533	11	34	119	5608784	1,96
23	Cuba	2589	21	43	288	11163934	1,88
24	Slovakia	2509	10	27	103	5410728	1,85
25	Belarus	2571	17	25	94	9464400	1,80
26	Netherlands	2639	30	79	297	16803500	1,79
27	Ukraine	2704	81	196	502	45469812	1,78
28	Moldova	2489	6	23	66	3559500	1,69
29	Qatar	2068	3	1	11	1864817	1,61
30	Russia	2740	220	502	2216	143500000	1,53
31	Mongolia	2416	4	7	48	2754685	1,45
32	Greece	2551	12	23	109	10815197	1,11
33	Romania	2582	21	82	273	20121641	1,04
34	Scotland	?	5	?	?	5100100	0.99
35	Germany	2622	80	236	1216	80523700	0,99
36	Switzerland	2507	8	35	133	8085300	0,99
37	Poland	2628	38	99	339	38533299	0,99
38	Spain	2598	43	108	502	46704314	0,92
39	Finland	2439	5	20	109	5442322	0,92
40	Kazakhstan	2497	15	28	124	17076000	0,88
41	Austria	2497	7	46	210	8464554	0,83
42	Turkmenistan	2374	4	8	45	5240000	0,76
43	France	2663	47	100	371	65776000	0,71
44	Paraguay	2356	4	3	23	6600284	0,61
45	Singapore	2329	3	13	61	5399200	0,56
46	England	2623	35	56	249	63705000	0,55
47	Argentina	2538	20	72	246	40117096	0,50
48	Uzbekistan	2526	11	10	51	30183400	0,36
49	Belgium	2488	4	20	86	11162121	0,36
50	Albania	2323	1	6	18	2821977	0,35
51	Wales	?	1	?	?	3100000	0.31
52	Uruguay	2297	1	4	29	3286314	0,30
53	Canada	2511	10	34	147	35158304	0,28
54	Portugal	2410	3	13	40	10562178	0,28
55	United States of America	2653	79	123	613	316889000	0,25
56	United Arab Emirates	2305	2	5	40	8264070	0,24
57	Chile	2468	4	11	61	16634603	0,24
58	New Zealand	2308	1	6	37	4476800	0,22
59	Ireland	2386	1	7	28	4585400	0,22
60	Peru	2513	6	11	58	30475144	0,20
61	Tunisia	2311	2	4	23	10777500	0,19
62	Kyrgyzstan	2286	1	5	12	5551900	0,18
63	Australia	2443	4	25	110	23219582	0,17
64	Italy	2562	10	41	201	59772978	0,17
65	Philippines	2544	15	24	76	98522000	0,15
66	Tajikistan	2271	1	4	7	8000000	0,13
67	Iran	2494	9	12	70	76987000	0,12
68	Dominican Republic	2323	1	6	24	9445281	0,11
69	Turkey	2534	8	18	79	75627384	0,11
70	Bolivia	2246	1	2	23	10027254	0,10
71	Colombia	2438	4	31	111	47283000	0,08
72	Vietnam	2499	7	12	106	88780000	0,08
73	Brazil	2545	11	29	172	201032714	0,05
74	Mexico	2450	5	27	152	118395054	0,04
75	Egypt	2471	3	27	56	83661000	0,04
76	Venezuela	2418	1	18	56	28946101	0,03
77	Bangladesh	2401	5	3	31	152518015	0,03
78	India	2644	34	76	230	1235320000	0,03
79	Algeria	2319	1	10	36	37900000	0,03
80	Indonesia	2420	6	14	80	237641326	0,03
81	China	2671	34	25	127	1360570000	0,02
82	South Korea	2084	1	1	12	50219669	0,02

this is updated list and England is in wrong place note it adds nations Scotland and wales

cap78red

Nov 18, 2017

#24

England is in wrong place because English population is that for entire britain

RhythmOfTheKnight0021

Nov 19, 2017

#25

zborg wrote:

"Research" with dozens of errors. Great thinking Brainiac. Much indebted.

Wow, Sherlock, great thinking. Much indebted. (Elementary, my dear Watson.)

watcha

Nov 26, 2017

#26

cap78red wrote:

England is in wrong place because English population is that for entire britain

Wow. It is good to see that someone finally took the pains to independently check my data and update it.

universityofpawns

Nov 26, 2017

#27

Nice post! I found this map of it too:

https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/5frfcu/world_map_of_chess_grandmasters_per_capita/

watcha

Nov 26, 2017

#28

universityofpawns wrote:

Nice post! I found this map of it too:

https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/5frfcu/world_map_of_chess_grandmasters_per_capita/

It is a shame I was not at the technical level at the time to present my data as a graph like this ( also it did not occur to me to be honest ).

Nevertheless I like this post from the discussion of the graph:

Saying Andorra has 1.4 GMs per 100 000 citizens is like saying the Vatican has more than 2 popes per square mile. Technically correct.

dzho

Dec 29, 2018

#29

Interesting stuff...

Wonder what the updated stats look like. India has around 55+ GM's now. Many new GM's since the updated statistics post in 2017, including Nihal Sarin and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu.

badenwurtca

Dec 29, 2018

#30

Very interesting thread.

ed1975

Dec 30, 2018

#31

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-players/icelandic-chess

EwanOneTwoThree

Mar 26, 2021

#32

watcha wrote:

Sorry if I have made mistakes but I have compiled the list by hand ( from two sources: the FIDE list of countries by strength http://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml and the Wikipedia list of country populations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population ). I had to exclude some countries since for example FIDE believes that Scotland is a country while Wikipedia lists no such country.

So you included England but not Scotland?

PRWoodpusher

Mar 26, 2021

#33

Are the Iceland numbers partially due to Bobby moving there, and or the match he played there?

SARXUS

May 29, 2022

#34

RomyGer escribió:

Apart from clear mistakes, I see more "problems", as e.g. Groenland-Denmark, Spain-Catalonia-Galicia-Grenada, and what about England-UK-Scotland-Wales-Ireland-Guernsey-Gibraltar-Jersey-IsleOfMan... and the small ones as Vatican, Monaco, Lichtenstein have to be counted in a separate section, like the big ones, China, India etc.

But when we select in a correct way, yes, the great lines can be seen, in another forum here on Chess.Com someone mentioned the former Yugoslav countries and the former USSR countries, each with now a lot of fine chess players !! And on the other hand, we see countries or regio's that have to be helped, like our Max Euwe once tried to do !

Why wouldn't you count Galicia and Catalonia as a part of Spain? But, more importantly, why would you count Grenada as a country when it's not even an autonomous region?