The supposedly most ignorant places in the world have been named based on a survey of people’s knowledge about their own country.
The Index of Ignorance, produced by Ipsos MORI, includes information from 27,250 interviews of people aged 16 to 64 carried out between September and November.
The survey took in populations from 40 countries, with between 500 and 1,000 people surveyed in each.
Participants were asked a number of questions about their society, including their country’s population, healthcare spending, homeownership and the proportion of Muslims living in their country. The findings were then collated to create the index.
The economic status of a country seemed to have less bearing on the results than might be expected.
The USA, the richest country in the world, ranked as one of the most ignorant countries, below many less developed countries.
However, Malaysia, which is not considered fully developed, was in the top 10 least ignorant countries.
The list, from most to least ignorant, is as follows:
India
China
Taiwan
South Africa
USA
Brazil
Thailand
Singapore
Turkey
Indonesia
Mexico
Canada
Montenegro
Russia
Serbia
Philippines
Hong Kong
Israel
Denmark
Argentina
France
Vietnam
Peru
Spain
Chile
Hungary
Japan
Belgium
Poland
Colombia
Sweden
Norway
Italy
Germany
Australia
Malaysia
Czech Republic
South Korea
United Kingdom
Netherlands
