Recently, Jack sent me this link to a Forbes article that purports to list the 25 smartest countries. I have no idea why someone chose to make this ranking, nor do I know how or why they chose the criteria they used.
The list includes no countries from Africa, Central America, South America, or the Middle East (other than Israel).
From the link (a 26-slide show :( to maximize ad revenues?) there is little explanation of which criteria are used and no description of the weights used.
For a many but not all of the countries, the article lists average IQs, which I have copied and rearranged in the list below. I know IQ is not a perfect measure of intelligence. Also, it bears repeating that averages say nothing about any individual resident.
Singapore 107.1
China 105.8
Hong Kong 105.7
South Korea 104.6
Taiwan 104.6
Japan 104.2
Finland 100.9
Canada 100.4
Netherlands 100.4
Switzerland 100.2
Belgium 99.3
Australia 99.2
UK 99.1
Austria 99
Germany 98.8
Sweden 98.6
Hungary 98.1