Nobel laureates by country of birth: top 7 to 2026

This ranking counts Nobel Prize winners by the country they were born in. It covers every prize from 1901 to the 2026 prizes, announced in October 2026. The country in first place is far ahead of the rest. The United Kingdom is second with 110 winners, then Germany with 86 and France with 65. Together those three have 261 winners, and the leader has more than all of them combined.

Further down, the numbers drop quickly. Japan has 31 winners, Sweden has 30 and Russia has 29. The step from first place to second is far bigger than the step from second place to fourth, so the top of this chart is not close.

The counts come from the Nobel Foundation's own laureate data, which records where each winner was born. We use today's borders. A winner born in a place that has since changed country is counted under the country it is now. Scotland and Northern Ireland are counted as part of the United Kingdom. Three recent winners have no birthplace in the data, so they are not counted here.

Birthplace is only one way to count. The same data also records the institution where each winner worked, and counting by that gives different totals. Lists that follow the countries the Nobel committee names differ again. The country in first place leads on each method, but the order of the United Kingdom, Germany and France can change from one method to another. That is why this ranking is marked as contested, and why the first place is safer to quote than the order below it.

To read the chart, look at the gaps rather than the places. A country's birthplace count says where winners started their lives, not where they did their prize-winning work or which passport they held when they won. Two countries can look alike on this chart and still tell very different stories about science, writing and peace work.

The counts also change a little each October, when new winners are announced. The figures here are given as of November 2026, after the six 2026 prizes were announced.