What is Kim Jong Un’s IQ?
The one graduation state media celebrates in detail, no classmate has ever confirmed.
No IQ test result for Kim Jong Un has ever been published, unsurprising for the hereditary leader of one of the world’s most closed states. What is documented instead is a set of conflicting records — North Korean state media’s account of a star student who graduated “with honours,” and Swiss municipal officials’ and journalists’ account of a teenager enrolled under a false name — that do not even agree on the year he was born.
Kim Jong Un’s estimated IQ
- North Korean state media credits him with degrees from Kim Il Sung University (physics) and Kim Il Sung Military University, saying he graduated the latter “with honours” on 24 December 2006 after a dissertation on GPS map accuracy — a claim outside analysts have never been able to independently confirm.
- Publicly unveiled as his father’s successor in September 2010 — made a four-star general with no prior military service — and became Supreme Leader on 17 December 2011, putting him in effective control of a nuclear-armed state before the age of 30.
- Has conducted direct, individual summit diplomacy with the leaders of South Korea, the United States and China, including becoming, on 12 June 2018, the first sitting North Korean leader to meet a sitting US president.
- Consolidated personal control partly through the December 2013 arrest and execution of his uncle and former mentor, Jang Song-thaek, one of the regime’s most powerful figures at the time.
Succeeding to total control of a one-party state is real and documented, but it happened through hereditary succession rather than competitive advancement — not the kind of evidence this site treats as informative elsewhere. North Korea’s secrecy also means none of his claimed academic credentials can be independently checked the way a foreign university degree can.
- Born
- 8 January — year disputed (North Korea states 1982; South Korean intelligence assesses 1983; US officials and a defected aunt cite 1984)
- Field
- Government, military — Supreme Leader of North Korea
- Known for
- Supreme Leader of North Korea since December 2011; the country’s nuclear and missile programs; the June 2018 Singapore summit, the first between a sitting North Korean leader and a sitting US president
- Education claimed
- Kim Il Sung University (physics) and Kim Il Sung Military University (graduated “with honours,” 2006, per North Korean state media) — neither independently confirmed by outside analysts
- Schooling documented
- Enrolled under assumed names at school in and around Bern, Switzerland, from the mid-1990s to 2000, per Swiss municipal officials and Western journalists — never confirmed by North Korean state media
- Documented IQ test
- None on record
What an IQ of 105–120 actually means
Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.
Average is 100 by construction, and about two-thirds of people fall between 85 and 115. Take the test to place your own score on this scale.
| Score range | Classification | Share of people | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85 – 114 | Average | ~68% | The range most people fall into. |
| 115 – 129 | Above average | ~13.6% | Roughly one person in seven. |
| 130 – 144 | Gifted | ~2% | The threshold most high-IQ societies use. |
| Above 144 | Highly gifted | ~0.1% | Figures above this range are extrapolated from the curve rather than measured. |
Percentages are approximate and describe a normal distribution. The same number means different things on tests with different standard deviations.
Thirty questions gives you a measured position on this exact scale — your score, your percentile and the ability breakdown behind it.
Find out in 30 minutes →Who Kim Jong Un is
Kim Jong Un is generally said to have been born on 8 January, but even the year is unsettled: North Korean state media states 1982, South Korean intelligence assesses 1983, and US officials — along with his aunt Ko Yong Suk, who lived with him in Switzerland and defected to the United States in 1998 — put it at 1984. Analysts have noted that 1982 conveniently marks the 70th anniversary of his grandfather Kim Il Sung’s birth and the 40th of his father Kim Jong Il’s official birth year, feeding suspicion that the date was chosen for symbolism rather than recorded fact. He is reported to have spent several years of his childhood, from the mid-1990s, in and around Bern, Switzerland, enrolled under assumed names — variously reported as “Pak-chol” and “Pak Un” — and passed off as the child of an embassy employee. A Köniz education official, Ueli Studer, told journalists in 2009 that “Pak Un” attended the Liebefeld-Steinhölzli public school from 1998 to 2000 and was “well-integrated, diligent and ambitious”; separate, far more thinly sourced reporting — a single UK tabloid citing unpublished documents and one anonymous classmate — describes poor attendance and a failed science grade instead. North Korea has never confirmed any part of this Swiss chapter.
Back in North Korea, he is reported by outside analysts to have attended Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang from around 2002 to 2007, said to have studied physics. North Korean state media additionally states that he graduated Kim Il Sung Military University on 24 December 2006 “with honours,” after a dissertation on improving GPS map accuracy, and describes him as a natural strategist who ended up “instructing the instructors.” Outside that claim, the record is unusually thin: a former North Korean military source told reporters that no one among the North Korean elite has been able to name a classmate or produce a photograph placing Kim at the university, and the analysis site NK Leadership Watch suggests private tutoring is more likely than formal enrolment. Among the heads of state profiled on this site, the contrast with Vladimir Putin is informative: Putin’s law degree is a real, checkable record, even though the dissertation attached to it was later found to be substantially copied. No comparably independent record exists for either of Kim’s claimed degrees.
He was publicly unveiled as his father’s successor in September 2010, made a four-star general despite no prior military service, and became Supreme Leader on 17 December 2011 after Kim Jong Il’s death — one of the fastest, least contested successions of the modern era, though a hereditary rather than a competitive one. He consolidated personal control partly by having his uncle and one-time mentor, Jang Song-thaek, arrested and executed in December 2013. Under his rule North Korea has conducted its most powerful declared nuclear tests, including a claimed hydrogen-bomb test in September 2017, and Kim became the first sitting North Korean leader to hold a summit with a sitting US president, meeting Donald Trump in Singapore on 12 June 2018, in addition to multiple meetings with South Korea’s Moon Jae-in.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystReviewed by Aarav Vardhan, Editor-in-Chief · Last reviewed August 2026
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Kim Jong Un: the documented record
The estimate above rests on this record. Every entry here is a matter of public fact, which is more than can be said for the number itself.
- c. 1982–84Born 8 January — North Korea states 1982, South Korean intelligence assesses 1983, and US officials and a defected aunt cite 1984.
- 1990sReported to attend school in and around Bern, Switzerland, under assumed names — never confirmed by North Korea.
- 1998–2000Documented by Swiss municipal officials as “Pak Un,” a pupil at the Liebefeld-Steinhölzli public school near Bern.
- 2002–2006Reported years at Kim Il Sung University; North Korean state media states he graduated Kim Il Sung Military University “with honours” on 24 December 2006.
- 2010Publicly unveiled as successor: made a four-star general on 27 September with no prior military service, then vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission.
- 2011Becomes Supreme Leader on 17 December, following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.
- 2013Has his uncle and former mentor, Jang Song-thaek, arrested and executed.
- 2018Becomes the first sitting North Korean leader to meet a sitting US president, at a summit with Donald Trump in Singapore (12 June); also holds two summits with South Korea’s Moon Jae-in.
Where the 120 figure came from
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
Almost every other figure on this site has a number that traces back somewhere — a test, a study, a hoax with a name attached. Kim Jong Un’s does not fit that pattern. No IQ test result for him has ever been published, by any government, testing body, or biographer, North Korean or otherwise. What circulates instead are two disconnected figures from small IQ-interest sites: myiqscores.com lists 120 as an explicitly labelled estimate while conceding on its own page that “no publicly verified test result” exists; brght.org lists 129 with no stated reasoning at all. Neither is more authoritative than the other, and neither is a test score.
The closest thing to an official assessment is more interesting, and less specific. In a 2017 lecture to South Korean lawmakers, Prof. Nam Sung-wook of Korea University — a former president of the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank with ties to South Korea’s intelligence service — described Kim as having a “mid-high IQ,” based on researchers’ interviews with people who knew him personally in Japan and Switzerland. He gave no number, and the assessment was a qualitative judgement built on secondhand interviews, not a test result.
North Korean state media’s own framing of Kim’s intelligence runs in a different register entirely — the same mythologising language long applied to his father and grandfather. Journalist Anna Fifield’s 2019 book on his early life carries the subtitle The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un, borrowed directly from that state-media vocabulary. It is propaganda, not evidence, and this site treats it as such.
How we read a number →North Korean state media states 8 January 1982; South Korean intelligence assesses 1983; US records from his time as a student in Switzerland, corroborated by his aunt Ko Yong Suk after she defected, indicate 1984. No independent record has settled the question.
States Kim graduated “with honours” after a dissertation on GPS accuracy for military mapping, and describes him as a natural strategist “instructing the instructors.” This is the state’s own claim, not an independently confirmed record.
Cites a former North Korean military source, now living in the US, who says no one in the North Korean elite has been able to identify a classmate or army-mate confirming Kim actually attended; the analysis site NK Leadership Watch similarly suggests private tutoring is more likely than formal enrolment.
Documents a student known as “Pak Un,” registered as a North Korean embassy employee’s child, attending the Liebefeld-Steinhölzli public school near Bern from 1998 to 2000. North Korea has never confirmed this account.
Washington Post correspondent’s account of Kim’s Swiss school years, drawn from interviews with the aunt and uncle who posed as his parents there and later defected to the US.
Underlying documents have never been published or independently reviewed; the claim rests on one anonymous former classmate.
Claims poor attendance and a failed science grade. The weakest-sourced claim on this page.
Describes Kim as having a “mid-high IQ,” based on researcher interviews with people who knew him personally in Japan and Switzerland. No number was given.
No test score, school transcript, or clinical assessment for Kim Jong Un has been published by any government, testing body, or biographer.
Source URLs and first-appearance date pending audit.
Neither cites a test. myiqscores.com’s own page concedes “no publicly verified test result” exists for Kim.
The sources behind our estimate
The figures that circulate for Kim Jong Un, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
Both 120 and 129 circulate for Kim Jong Un on celebrity- and world-leader-IQ interest sites, alongside a vaguer, unnumbered “mid-high IQ” assessment attributed to South Korean security-studies research — none of it tied to an actual test.
There is no published IQ test result for Kim Jong Un. North Korean state media states that he graduated Kim Il Sung Military University “with honours” on 24 December 2006 after a dissertation on GPS accuracy, and describes him as such a natural strategist that he ended up “instructing the instructors” — a claim a former North Korean military source says no identifiable classmate or record has ever confirmed.
120 is presented as a standalone estimate by one dedicated IQ-interest site, which concedes on the same page that no verified test result exists. 129 circulates on a separate celebrity-comparison site with no stated reasoning at all. The one claim behind either number with any real expertise — a 2017 assessment from a South Korean security-studies professor — used the phrase “mid-high IQ” and deliberately gave no number.
Want a number that does hold up? Every figure on this page is somebody’s claim. Take the 30-question test and get a percentile you can check rather than a figure you have to trust.
Kim Jong Un — frequently asked
What is Kim Jong Un’s IQ?
No test result has ever been published. Aggregator sites list estimates of 120 or 129 with no cited methodology; the closest thing to an official assessment is a 2017 South Korean professor’s description of a “mid-high IQ,” given without a number.
Did North Korea really send Kim Jong Un to school in Switzerland?
North Korea has never confirmed it, but Swiss municipal officials and Western journalists documented a student enrolled under assumed names — “Pak-chol” and “Pak Un” among them — at schools in and around Bern from the mid-1990s to 2000.
Did Kim Jong Un really graduate from Kim Il Sung Military University?
North Korean state media says so, in detail — a December 2006 graduation “with honours” after a dissertation on GPS accuracy. Outside analysts, including a former North Korean military source, say no classmate or record of his attendance has ever surfaced, and suspect private tutoring instead.
Why is Kim Jong Un’s birth year disputed?
North Korea states 1982, South Korean intelligence assesses 1983, and US officials — along with his aunt, who defected in 1998 — cite 1984. Analysts have suggested 1982 was chosen because it lines up with symbolic anniversaries for his grandfather and father, rather than necessarily being the true year.
Has Kim Jong Un ever taken a real IQ test?
There is no public record of one. No government, testing body, or biographer has published a score, and Kim has never referenced one himself.
What has North Korean state media claimed about Kim Jong Un’s intelligence?
State media has described him in the same mythologising register long used for his father and grandfather — crediting him with instructing his own military instructors and graduating with honours — without any of it being independently checkable. This site treats that language as propaganda, not evidence.
How does my IQ compare with Kim Jong Un?
You can find out in about fifteen minutes. The IQ Metrics assessment is 30 questions, scored on the same 100-mean scale used throughout this page, so your result and the estimate above are at least expressed in the same units — one measured, one inferred. Once you have a number, the leaderboard shows where it would sit, and how we score and norm it explains the benchmarking.
Where does this estimate come from?
From the documented record rather than a test — the method is named above and set out in full under how we read a number. Compare it against the other politics profiles, starting with Thomas Jefferson.
- Take the 30-question IQ test — get a measured score and percentile of your own
- Average IQ by country — how the scale behaves across populations
- How IQ Metrics scores its assessment — the method behind our own number
- More on how IQ testing works — reliability, error and what a score can and cannot say
- More politics profiles — same field, same method
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Photograph by Alexander Gardner (8 November 1863), public domain. Background removed for the portrait above. · Official portrait by Shealah Craighead for the White House, public domain. Background removed for the portrait above. · Official White House photograph by Pete Souza (2012), public domain. Background removed for the portrait above.
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