World’s Best Schools: Number of Top-500 Universities by Country

Map created by reddit user Quackattackaggie

The map above tells a few interesting stories. On the surface it shows that the US is the clear leader in higher education, with 146 out of the world’s top 500 universities (29.2%). This is over 3 times more than China, the next closest country.

However, that’s not the only thing that’s interesting.

Below the surface it shows that the majority of the world’s countries don’t have a single top 500 university. This means many of today’s developing countries may find it difficult to shift their economies to more knowledge based ones as they develop.

The data comes from the The Shanghai Ranking System and the devil can be in the details. For example, while China has the second largest number of top 500 universities, it lacks a single one in the top 100. Demonstrating that while it’s closing the gap with the US, it still has a long way to go.

When taken as a region, Europe still comes out on top with 205 universities, followed by the Americas (North and South America) with 176, Asia/Pacific with 114 and Africa with only 5. However, when looking at the cream of the crop the US leads with 16 of the top 20 and 55 of the top 100. Europe on the other hand only has 4 of the top 20 and 35 of the top 100.

Here’s a look at how countries performed:

Country	Top20	Top100	Top200	Top300	Top400	Top500
United States	16	51	78	102	125	146
United Kingdom	3	9	21	28	33	37
Switzerland	1	4	6	7	7	7
Germany	—	4	13	21	28	39
France	—	4	8	15	18	22
Australia	—	4	8	11	19	20
Netherlands	—	4	8	10	12	12
Japan	—	4	7	9	12	18
Canada	—	4	6	16	18	20
Sweden	—	3	5	7	10	11
Belgium	—	2	4	6	7	7
Israel	—	2	4	4	4	6
Denmark	—	2	3	4	5	5
Norway	—	1	2	3	3	3
Finland	—	1	1	1	3	6
Russia	—	1	1	1	2	2
China	—	—	10	19	37	44
Italy	—	—	5	8	10	20
Saudi Arabia	—	—	2	2	3	4
Singapore	—	—	2	2	2	2
Spain	—	—	1	5	8	13
South Korea	—	—	1	5	8	12
Austria	—	—	1	3	3	6
Brazil	—	—	1	1	4	6
Ireland	—	—	1	1	2	3
Argentina	—	—	1	1	1	1
South Africa	—	—	—	2	2	4
New Zealand	—	—	—	2	2	2
Portugal	—	—	—	1	2	3
Iran	—	—	—	1	1	2
Czech	—	—	—	1	1	1
Mexico	—	—	—	1	1	1
Poland	—	—	—	—	2	2
Chile	—	—	—	—	1	2
Greece	—	—	—	—	1	2
Malaysia	—	—	—	—	1	2
India	—	—	—	—	1	1
Serbia	—	—	—	—	1	1
Hungary	—	—	—	—	—	2
Egypt	—	—	—	—	—	1
Slovenia	—	—	—	—	—	1
Turkey	—	—	—	—	—	1
Total	20	100	200	300	400	500

For a complete list of universities see Academic Ranking of World Universities 2015 and you can learn more about their methodology here.

Another way to look at the data is to look at the number of top 500 universities per million people, which yields a totally different set of rankings (data from reddit user drunken_life_coach):

1. Sweden: 1.147
2. Finland: 1.103
3. Denmark: 0.891
4. Switzerland: 0.866
5. Australia: 0.865
6. Israel: 0.745
7. Netherlands: 0.714
8. Austria: 0.708
9. Ireland: 0.653
10. Belgium: 0.625
11. Norway: 0.590
12. Canada: 0.569
13. UK: 0.577
14. Slovenia: 0.485
15. Germany: 0.484
16. USA: 0.458
17. New Zealand: 0.447
18. Singapore: 0.370
19. Italy: 0.334
20. France: 0.333
21. Portugal: 0.287
22. Spain: 0.278
23. South Korea: 0.239
24. Hungary: 0.202
25. Greece: 0.181
26. Japan: 0.141
27. Serbia: 0.140
28. Saudi Arabia: 0.139
29. Chile: 0.114
30. Czech Republic: 0.095
31. South Africa: 0.076
32. Malaysia: 0.67
33. Poland: 0.052
34. China: 0.032
35. Brazil: 0.030
36. Iran: 0.026
37. Argentina: 0.024
38. Russia: 0.014
39. Turkey: 0.013
40. Egypt: 0.012
41. Mexico: 0.008
42. India: 0.001

To learn more about global education have a look at the following books:

• College (Un)bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students
• What the Best College Teachers Do
• The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way

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