This claim was made popular by being said in the movie The Social Network. It exactly says:

> Did you know there are more people with genius IQs living in China than there are people of any kind living in the United States?

It sounds mind-blowing, almost impossible actually, but let's check the facts.

In theory, the statement could be true. According to the UN, in 2015 the United States had an estimated population of 322 million people, while China, according to the World Bank, had approximately 1.4 billion. If we consider that the distribution of high IQs follows a normal or Gaussian distribution, we could estimate the number of people with
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> — Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network

This statement is highly incorrect in its implications, and to set the record straight, let's break it down.

First, there are several definitions and measures of intelligence, so it is not a simple matter to determine who truly has a "genius IQ." However, for the purpose of this discussion, let us use an IQ score of 130 as a benchmark for genius. According to the