Reading comments preceding mine, and reviewing the IQ by country chart, a couple points stick out:

- world avg IQ is higher than US avg IQ by 3 points

- IQ for countries in politically challenged areas is drastically lower than in countries where industry and technology reign. (*I include China and Russia in that category, even though Russia's avg is lower than the US - must be because vodka is cheaper than water or milk there)

- cultural distinctions that promote both deeper philosophical and creative thinking vs simple survival skills in my brief review appear to win the IQ race, China, Japan, Hong Kong, much of Europe particularly the Nordics, Canada - all have strong cultural support systems promoting art and social science studies. (watch for the MAGA states IQs to fall significantly as they remove critical thinking studies and promote evangelical doctrines in their schools and universities)

- in particular, I would look at the IQ tests in detail and determine if the knowledge and reasoning they're testing for have relevance to people in places like Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Jamaica or East Timor. If you aren't promoting intelligence but simply agrarian or *drug trade, then knowing the next logical item that fits the pattern in the sequence isn't really that important to survival

Last point - just because someone scores extremely high on their IQ tests doesn't mean they aren't an idiot. EQ and the ability to understand your audience factors in more highly to overall intelligence than just what is being tested here. I would argue that many of the countries which score low on the IQ tests likely have higher EQ than the top 20 countries since that is what is needed for their people to survive and thrive.