What Is the Average IQ in China? Where the Figures Come From and What PISA Really Covers

The average IQ in China is 100 on any test normed in China, because every IQ test sets its own average at 100. No national IQ sample exists for China. The figures that circulate are 104.10 from a compiled estimate (51,500 people in 6 studies) and 106.48 from a 2026 online table whose “China” also counts Hong Kong and Taiwan. PISA’s top scores come from four provincial-level regions.

Below: where each figure comes from, why “China” in a table is not the same place from one table to the next, and what PISA’s result for Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang (B-S-J-Z) covers. New here: at least 29.2% of the online table’s Chinese takers were in Hong Kong or Taiwan, and the OECD’s own tables show how a result for tested students shrinks when every 15-year-old is counted. This page covers country-level data only. It says nothing about any group of people.

Key takeaways

• A China-normed IQ test averages 100 by design. Comparing countries needs other data.
• Two numbers circulate: 104.10 (compiled, 6 studies, 51,500 people) and 106.48 (online, 229,918 takers, counting Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan).
• PISA’s “China” is B-S-J-Z, four provincial-level regions and 374 schools in 2025. They scored 612.4 in maths, first of 90. Of the students tested, 54.2% reached Level 5 or 6. Counting every 15-year-old, the share is 44.7%.
• China did not take part in the 2023 Survey of Adult Skills, so no adult-skills figure exists.

What is the average IQ in China?

On a test normed in China, the average is 100 by construction. A norm group is a large sample of people who took the test. Its mean is set to 100, with a standard deviation (SD) of 15 points. A person in China who scores 100 is average among people in China. That says nothing about China against another country.

Four kinds of number get called the average IQ of China. They answer different questions, and none is an IQ test of everyone in the country. As far as we found, no nation’s IQ has been measured on one test given to a random sample of the whole population. China is no exception. Searches for the China average IQ or the average IQ China lead to the same few numbers.

Where do the 104.10 and 106.48 figures for China come from?

The 104.10 is the compiled estimate in Lynn and Becker (2019), as shown on our average IQ by country page. It rests on 6 studies and 51,500 people. Our page says the Chinese samples are consistently urban and coastal, not representative of the whole country, and that China’s PISA entries have also come from its wealthiest provinces.

The 106.48 is the International IQ Test’s 2026 table: 229,918 people who took its online test in 2025, 19.0% of everyone in the table. A plain 105 for China appears on many pages. We could not trace it to a source we can open, so we do not use it. The two figures we can read are 2.4 points apart, as our report on the 2026 online ranking sets out.

Why is "China" in a table not the same as China?

Because tables draw the border in different places. The online table follows UN practice and rolls territories into their sovereign country, so its 106.48 for China includes Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Hong Kong’s own figure in that table is 107.73, from 20,793 takers. Taiwan’s is 105.80, from 46,281. Together they are at least 67,074 of the 229,918 Chinese takers, or 29.2%. Macao’s count is not printed. The compiled estimate on our country page lists Taiwan (106.47), Hong Kong (105.37) and Macau (99.82) as separate entries, so its 104.10 for China leaves them out.

So the two figures for China cover different places and different people. Taking Hong Kong and Taiwan out of the online table barely moves it: by our arithmetic from the rounded figures, the other 162,844 takers (mainland China plus Macao) average about 106.5. The label changes between tables. The number here hardly does.

What does PISA B-S-J-Z cover?

B-S-J-Z stands for Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, four provincial-level regions. In the OECD’s PISA 2025 tables the entry reads “B-S-J-Z (China)”, not “China”. The sample was 374 schools.

These are school scores of 15-year-olds in school. PISA is not an IQ test, as our guide to whether PISA is an IQ test explains. The 2018 round gave B-S-J-Z 591.4 in maths and 590.5 in science. So the 2025 maths score is 21.0 points higher, with a standard error of 4.4.

The OECD also reports a stricter measure that counts every 15-year-old, including those not in secondary school or excluded from the test. In maths, 54.2% of the tested B-S-J-Z students reached Level 5 or 6, the top two levels (607 points or more). Among all 15-year-olds the share is 44.7%, which is 9.5 points lower. For Japan the same two figures are 22.3% and 19.2%.

Read it this way: a PISA score describes the students who sat the test. It does not describe every young person in the region, and it says nothing about the rest of China. Our report on PISA 2025 covers what the round does and does not show.

Why is there no PISA 2022 result for China?

The OECD’s 2025 trend tables show B-S-J-Z for 2018 and 2025 only, with the 2022 column empty. Wikipedia reports that the four regions took part in 2022 but their results were not published, because COVID restrictions stopped full data collection. We could not open the OECD page behind that claim.

Earlier rounds used other places. Wikipedia lists Shanghai alone in 2009 and 2012, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Guangdong in 2015, and Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang in 2018. So “China” in PISA has been a different set of places in different years.

How does China compare with Japan and the US?

On the compiled estimate China (104.10) trails Japan (107.01) by 2.9 points and leads the US (97.43) by 6.7. On the online table it leads Japan (106.30) by 0.2 and the US (101.04) by 5.4.

A small gap means two weak sources roughly agree, as they do for China and Japan. A large one, like India’s 22.2 points, means at least one is a poor guide. Agreement shows the sources are alike. It does not prove either is right.

Our post on the average IQ in Japan sets Japan’s figures beside the OECD skills data. See also the average IQ in South Korea and the average IQ in India. For a different kind of comparison, our study of US and Chinese brain-science research counts papers, not IQ.

How can you check your own score?

• Treat 100 as the average IQ in China on any China-normed test, and nothing more.
• Read 104.10 as six studies, 106.48 as web volunteers in several territories, and PISA as the school skills of students in four regions.
• For a score of your own, take the IQ test, then place it with the IQ percentile calculator. Our IQ bell curve shows what a score means on the scale.

Quick answers

• What is the average IQ in China? The average IQ in China is 100 on any China-normed test. The circulating national figures are 104.10 (compiled, 6 studies) and 106.48 (online, 229,918 takers).
• Why is the online figure for China higher? It is a different set of people and places. Its China counts Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and the takers chose the test.
• What does PISA’s China result cover? Four provincial-level regions, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, with 374 schools in 2025.
• Did China take part in PISA 2022? The OECD tables hold no 2022 result for B-S-J-Z. Wikipedia says the data were collected but not published because of COVID restrictions.
• Is the 105 figure for China real? We could not trace a plain 105 to a source we can open, so we do not use it.

Sources

• Lynn R, Becker D (2019). The Intelligence of Nations. Ulster Institute for Social Research (NIQ-DATASET V1.3.2), as reproduced on our average IQ by country page.
• International IQ Test 2026 country table (updated 1 January 2026), as read and recomputed in our 2026 online ranking report.
• OECD (2026). PISA 2025 Results (Volume I), Table I.B1.2: student performance in PISA 2025, tables I.B1.2a.1 to I.B1.2a.3, I.B1.2a.12, I.B1.2a.25, I.B1.2a.36, I.B1.2a.38 and I.B1.2a.47 (version of 8 September 2026).
• OECD (2024). Do Adults Have the Skills They Need to Thrive in a Changing World? Survey of Adult Skills 2023, Annex A table A.2.1 (31 participants).
• Programme for International Student Assessment, Wikipedia: China’s participation by round and the unpublished 2022 data (the OECD page it cites could not be opened).