Sweden and Japan tie at 34 Nobel Prizes. Here are the 10 countries with the most

The Nobel Prizes have been awarded since 1901, and over 125 years they have become a rough scoreboard for where the world's most celebrated science, writing and peacemaking comes from. The totals are lopsided: one country has more prizes than the next three combined, while a tie for fifth place hides a very different story once you divide by population. Alfred Nobel's will specified prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace, and a sixth prize in economics was added in 1968 by Sweden's central bank in his memory.

Visual Capitalist's ranking, compiled from Wikipedia and Nobel Prize records as of October 2026, counts prizes under the country or countries the Nobel committee names for each laureate, so a laureate tied to two countries counts for both and totals vary slightly by source. The prizes have been awarded 633 times to 1,018 people and organizations, according to Wikipedia. Each slide below gives a country's total, who is behind it and, where available, how it looks per person. The 10 countries with the most are below.

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The U.S. leads with 432 Nobel Prizes, more than the UK, Germany and France combined, which together have 343. Wikipedia counts 429 American laureates for the 432 prizes because some people won more than once, and Mappr's tally of 427 notes that Bardeen, Pauling and Sharpless each won twice.

The total is helped by who gets credited. The Nobel committee lists a laureate under the country or countries it names, which means American totals include scientists born elsewhere. Hans Bethe, who won the 1967 Physics prize, was born in what was then Germany and is now France. Hans Dehmelt, a 1989 Physics laureate, was born in Germany, and Oliver Smithies, a 2007 Medicine laureate, was born in the UK. Mappr's comparison of birthplaces found that 297 of the 427 laureates credited to the U.S. were born there, a net gain of roughly 130.

The American list spans every category. In literature it includes Sinclair Lewis in 1930, William Faulkner in 1949, Toni Morrison in 1993 and Louise Glück in 2020. In peace it includes Ralph Bunche in 1950, Linus Pauling in 1962 and Barack Obama in 2009, and in economics Robert Solow in 1987, Gary Becker in 1992 and Elinor Ostrom in 2009.

Per person, the picture is less dominant. Mappr puts the U.S. at 12.5 laureates per 10 million people, which ranks 11th among countries with at least five laureates.

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The UK ranks second with 145 prizes, about a third of the U.S. total, awarded to 144 laureates. Per person it does better than the U.S., with 20.7 laureates per 10 million people against 12.5, according to Mappr's analysis.

Much of Britain's early record came in physics. The list of Physics laureates includes Lord Rayleigh in 1904, Joseph Thomson in 1906, Lawrence Bragg in 1915, Charles Barkla in 1917 and Charles Wilson in 1927, and the UK's economics winners include James Meade in 1977. A large share of the story runs through one university. The University of Cambridge counts more Nobel laureates among its alumni, faculty and researchers than any other institution, according to Quartz's reporting on top universities, though totals differ depending on how loosely affiliation is defined. Much of that concentration traces to the Cavendish Laboratory, which has housed Cambridge physics since 1874.

The UK's count is also shaped by credit rules. British-born scientists who did their prizewinning work elsewhere are listed under other countries. Richard Robson, born in the UK, appears under Australia for his 2025 Chemistry prize, and John Macleod, who shared the 1923 Medicine prize, was born in the UK but is listed under Canada. Oliver Smithies, born in the UK, is counted with the U.S.

The UK, Germany and France form what Mappr calls the European core of the list.

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Germany ranks third with 118 prizes in Visual Capitalist's chart. Counts for Germany vary by source, and some tables show 116, which is a reminder that the totals change with each year's announcements and with how laureates tied to more than one country are handled.

Germany's list begins with the first Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded in 1901 to Wilhelm Röntgen, and includes Albert Einstein and Max Planck, among the best-known names in the history of science. It also includes Heinrich Böll, who won the Literature prize in 1972. Mappr credits the 2026 Medicine prize to Hegemann and Nagel, a pair it lists as German laureates.

As with other countries, German-born scientists often appear under other flags. Hans Dehmelt, born in Germany, is counted with the U.S. for his 1989 Physics prize, and Georges Köhler, born in Germany, is listed under Switzerland for the Medicine prize he won in 1984 after working there from 1976 to 1984.

Mappr puts Germany at 13.9 laureates per 10 million people, using a count of 116 laureates, which is slightly above the U.S. rate of 12.5 but well below the rates for Switzerland, Austria and Sweden. In absolute terms Germany is far behind the U.S. and the UK, but it is the biggest source of laureates in continental Europe by a wide margin.

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France ranks fourth with 80 prizes, awarded to 79 laureates, or about 11.5 laureates per 10 million people, according to Mappr.

France's strength is unusually spread across categories. In literature, Frédéric Mistral won in 1904, Romain Rolland in 1915, Anatole France in 1921, Claude Simon in 1985 and Patrick Modiano in 2014, and French is the second most common language among literature laureates, with 16, behind English with 30. In peace, Louis Renault won in 1907 and Léon Bourgeois in 1920. In economics, Gérard Debreu won in 1983, Maurice Allais in 1988, Jean Tirole in 2014 and Esther Duflo in 2019.

The count also reflects how the Nobel committee assigns credit. Marie Curie, who was born in Poland and built her scientific career in France, is one example of how a laureate's birthplace and the country credited can differ.

France is fourth in the totals, but its position per person is closer to the U.S. than to Switzerland or Sweden. Mappr puts France at 11.5 laureates per 10 million people against 12.5 for the U.S. and 32.1 for Sweden. In raw numbers France is well ahead of the Nordic and Alpine countries, but per head it is well behind them.

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Sweden is tied for fifth with 34 prizes. It is the home country of Alfred Nobel, who bequeathed 94% of his total assets, about 31 million Swedish kronor, to fund the prizes, and it awards every prize except the Peace Prize, which Norway awards.

Three Swedish institutions are involved. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the prizes in physics, chemistry and economics, the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute awards the medicine prize and the Swedish Academy awards the literature prize. Swedish laureates include Tomas Lindahl in Chemistry in 2015, Tomas Tranströmer in Literature in 2011, Arvid Carlsson in Medicine in 2000, Alva Myrdal in Peace in 1982, Sune Bergström and Bengt Samuelsson in Medicine in 1982 and Kai Siegbahn in Physics in 1981. The geneticist Svante Pääbo won the Medicine prize in 2022.

Per person Sweden leads the world among countries with at least five laureates. Mappr puts it at 32.1 laureates per 10 million people, ahead of Switzerland at 29.7, Austria at 27.1, Norway at 25.0 and Denmark at 23.3 and more than two and a half times the U.S. rate of 12.5.

That tie with Japan at 34 shows how much the headline total hides, since by Mappr's figures Sweden's rate is more than 11 times Japan's.

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Japan is tied with Sweden for fifth at 34 prizes, but its rate is far lower, about 2.8 laureates per 10 million people, according to Mappr. A tally from November 2025 had Japan at 33, so its count has risen by one since then.

Mappr calls Japan the strongest non-Western performer on the list. Its laureates include Masatoshi Koshiba, who shared the 2002 Physics prize for detecting cosmic neutrinos, and Takaaki Kajita, of the University of Tokyo's Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, who shared the 2015 Physics prize for discovering neutrino oscillations, which established that neutrinos have mass.

Mappr also notes that the sciences are heavily concentrated. Chemistry prizes span 39 birth countries, medicine 38, physics just 30 and economics only 21, and the overwhelming majority of science prizes go to researchers working at American, British, German or Japanese institutions, wherever they were born. Japan is the only country outside North America and Europe in that group.

Asians have won in all six categories, according to Wikipedia's list of Asian laureates, and that list also shows how credit can move across borders. It lists Yoichiro Nambu's 2008 Physics prize under the U.S., for example, which shows how a laureate's birthplace and the country credited can differ.

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Russia is tied for seventh with 30 prizes, counted together with the Soviet Union. Its rate is about 2.1 laureates per 10 million people, according to Mappr.

Russian literature has had a prominent but fraught place in the record. Ivan Bunin won the Literature prize in 1933, Boris Pasternak in 1958, Mikhail Sholokhov in 1965 and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1970. Pasternak was forced to decline the prize, and his descendants accepted it in 1988. Solzhenitsyn could not receive his until 1974, after he was expelled from the Soviet Union. Wikipedia notes that, during the Soviet period, the other laureates in Literature or Peace, apart from Mikhail Gorbachev, were dissidents or exiles.

Soviet science did better with the committee. Lev Landau won the 1962 Physics prize, and the Swedish ambassador presented it to him in Moscow. Pyotr Kapitsa won in 1978. Andrei Sakharov, awarded in 1975, was the first Russian Peace laureate, and Gorbachev won in 1990.

Recent laureates linked to Russia include Dmitry Muratov in Peace in 2021, the human rights group Memorial in Peace in 2022 and Alexei Ekimov in Chemistry in 2023. Andre Geim, who won the Physics prize in 2010, was born in Russia and is credited to other countries as well.

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Canada is tied with Russia for seventh at 30 prizes, which makes it the second-highest country in the Americas after the U.S. A tally from November 2025 had Canada at 29, and Visual Capitalist credits the 2026 Literature prize to Canada's Anne Carson.

Canada's earlier winners cover literature, medicine and physics. Alice Munro won the Literature prize in 2013, Ralph Steinman the Medicine prize in 2011 and Jim Peebles the Physics prize in 2019. Frederick Banting won the Medicine prize in 1923, which he shared with John Macleod, who was born in the UK and is credited to Canada.

The 1923 award shows how the Nobel committee assigns credit. A laureate is listed under the country or countries it names, so a British-born scientist working in Canada counts for Canada, and some laureates count for two countries. David Card, who won the 2021 Economics prize, is listed under both Canada and the U.S. Canada's total is therefore a measure of where prizewinning work was credited as much as of where scientists were born.

Mappr's per-person table shows Canada at about 7 laureates per 10 million people, well below the Nordic and Alpine countries and the UK. In the all-time list, Canada sits just behind Japan and Sweden and ahead of Switzerland and Austria in total, though both of those countries do far better per person.

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Switzerland ranks ninth with 27 prizes. Its rate of 29.7 laureates per 10 million people is the second highest among countries with at least five laureates, behind only Sweden, according to Mappr.

A lot of Switzerland's record rests on science, and on researchers who came from elsewhere. Leopold Ružička, who won the 1939 Chemistry prize, and Vladimir Prelog, who won in 1975, both worked at ETH Zurich. Ružička was born in Vukovar and Prelog in Sarajevo, both then part of Austria-Hungary. Georges Köhler, who won the 1984 Medicine prize, was born in Germany and worked in Switzerland from 1976 to 1984, and the Nobel committee lists him under Switzerland.

That pattern fits Mappr's finding that science prizes are concentrated at a small number of institutions in a few countries, wherever the researchers were born. A small country with research universities that attract foreign talent can post a high per-person rate for that reason, though the data doesn't say how much of Switzerland's total comes from Swiss-born laureates.

The comparison with the U.S. is striking. Switzerland has 27 prizes against 432, but its rate per person is more than twice the American one.

Switzerland also ranks first in the World Intellectual Property Organization's 2026 Global Innovation Index, ahead of Sweden in second place.