Image by Julian Finney / Getty Images

A week ago, Ipsos MORI, a market research company based in London, released their 2016 Index of Ignorance, which purportedly measures the level of ignorance in 40 countries from around the world. Ipsos MORI gathered their data from a survey taken by 27,250 people – between 500 and 1000 in each of the countries tested.

The survey, titled “Perils of Perception,” measures respondents’ accuracy when estimating figures like the relative size of the Muslim population in their country, or the number of people in their country who believe that homosexuality is unacceptable. The answers to the various questions and their accuracy relative to Ipsos MORI’s official data were combined to create the Index.

The United States placed in the top-5 most ignorant countries, with India being the most ignorant. Israel place 18th, right in the middle of the pack. The Netherlands placed lowest on the Index earning them the title of least ignorant country.

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To what extent a population’s relative guessing skills actually measure anything like ignorance is open for debate (consider me a skeptic), but, in any event here are the full results from most ignorant to least:

1. India
2. China
3. Taiwan
4. South Africa
5. USA
6. Brazil
7. Thailand
8. Singapore
9. Turkey
10. Indonesia
11. Mexico
12. Canada
13. Montenegro
14. Russia
15. Serbia
16. Philippines
17. Hong Kong
18. Israel
19. Denmark
20. Argentina
21. France
22. Vietnam
23. Peru
24. Spain
25. Chile
26. Hungary
27. Japan
28. Belgium
29. Poland
30. Colombia
31. Sweden
32. Norway
33. Italy
34. Germany
35. Australia
36. Malaysia
37. Czech Republic
38. South Korea
39. United Kingdom
40. Netherlands

Jake Romm is the Forward’s culture intern. Contact him at romm@forward.com or on Twitter, @JakeRomm

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