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 very impressive, doesn't it? People often quote it as a fact that highlights the vast population of China but it's not entirely correct.

More than 32 million people in the United States have an IQ score above 130, according to a study in Psychological Science in the Public Interest back in 2005 (PDF). Estimates of the number of Chinese who score in the same range vary widely, with some suggesting
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