Statistical Analysis: Cubers per million citizens

[beingforitself]

Yes yes, nationalism is stupid, etc., etc.; however, I thought it would be of (mild) interest to calculate the number of top-100, sub-20, and total cubers per million people of various nations (based on WCA records), to see if any interesting and/or unexpected patterns (with regards to common stereotypes about "better" cubing countries) occur. The summarized results are:

Global Top-100 cubers [average of 5 3x3x3] per million inhabitants: (corresponds roughly to sub-14)

1 .477 Taiwan
2 .299 Hungary
3 .242 Netherlands
4 .208 Singapore
5 .207 Norway
.207 Korea
6 .189 Finland
7 .184 Poland
8 .148 Canada
9 .120 Austria
10 .110 Japan
11 .107 Sweden
12 .094 Belgium
13 .092 France
14 .065 USA
15 .063 Thailand
16 .037 Germany
17 .022 Philippines
18 .021 Spain
19 .016 UK
20 .005 Brazil
21 .002 China

Sub-20 Cubers [average of 5 3x3x3] per million inhabitants:

1 2.95 Taiwan
2 2.49 Hungary
3 2.07 Singapore
4 1.26 Poland
5 1.20 Korea
6 1.13 Finland
7 1.12 Sweden
8 1.06 Thailand
9 1.03 Netherlands
10 .979 Canada
11 .833 Norway
12 .726 Denmark
13 .652 Philippines
14 .602 USA
15 .450 Spain
16 .580 Japan
17 .599 France
18 .375 Belgium
19 .240 Austria
20 .171 Germany
21 .146 UK
22 .055 China
23 .037 Brazil

Cubers with any recorded average of 5 per million inhabitants:

1 13.9 Sweden
2 9.07 Hungary
3 7.50 Norway
4 7.24 Taiwan
5 6.55 Finland
6 5.63 Canada
7 5.42 Netherlands
8 4.87 USA
9 4.73 Denmark
10 4.61 Poland
11 4.01 Spain
12 3.75 France
13 3.64 Korea
14 3.50 Singapore
15 2.81 Belgium
16 2.11 Philippines
17 2.06 Japan
18 1.86 Germany
19 1.80 Thailand
20 .844 UK
21 .588 Austria
22 .468 China
23 .283 Brazil

Observation #1: Taiwan is extraordinarily efficient at producing fast cubers per unit population.

Observation #2: Japan, sometimes characterized as the "best" speedcubing country, primarily based on the results of a single cuber (and probably combined with irrational Japanophilia and racist assumptions about Asian mental superiority), is actually a medium-to-low performing country in terms of rate of speedcuber production. Hungary and Taiwan are the two highest performing countries in actuality. Hungary's performance is almost certainly due to Erno Rubik being the originator of the Rubik's cube. Taiwan's success is a bit harder to explain, however.

Observation #3: Both Japan and the United States' high occurence rate (in terms of absolute numbers) on the top-100 list is attributable to their high total populations rather than to a more advanced speedcubing culture.

Observation #4: Sweden, while not performing the best with regards to sub-14 and sub-20 cuber population, is off the charts with regards to total cuber population. Is this a fluke, or some sort of premonition of Swedish dominance in coming years?


Any other commentary / suggestions would be appreciated.

EDIT: added denmark

 

[badmephisto]

I'm not sure if doing this per country is significant in any way. Countries are separated by arbitrarily set dividing lines.
How about doing this based on other things like... Language, or Age groups, or Major cities? Not sure if the data exists for that though, since I assume you are taking this from the WCA...

I'm also surprised about how low the numbers are... best country, Taiwan... only 14 people in a random sample of a MILLION have been to a competition?

You can also argue about the correlation of total cubers vs. cubers that have attended a competition... which is not so clear to me

 

[JTW2007]

I'd like to see it by age. That would be an interesting curve.

 

[Stefan]

Interesting. And yes, I usually don't like the concept of country, but used as a tool for statistics it can be nice, to analyze regions or cultures of the world. Not perfect, but the best we got.

Observation #3: Both Japan and the United States' high occurence rate (in terms of absolute numbers) on the top-100 list is attributable to their high total populations rather than to a more advanced speedcubing culture.

I think this one is flawed. If high total population led to high top-100 occurence rate, China and India together having 37% of the world's population shouldn't occur so rarely (3 and 0 times, respectively).

 

[beingforitself]

Observation #3: Both Japan and the United States' high occurence rate (in terms of absolute numbers) on the top-100 list is attributable to their high total populations rather than to a more advanced speedcubing culture.

I think this one is flawed. If high total population led to high top-100 occurence rate, China and India together having 37% of the world's population shouldn't occur so rarely (3 and 0 times, respectively).

While you are literally correct, within the realm of fully industrialized nations my statement is correct. Although they are rapidly industrializing, both India and China still have huge chunks of their populations which are too poor to effectively contribute to their potential speedcubing subsets. Fully industrialized nations on the other hand have probably between 80 and 95 percent of their populations rich enough to engage in cubing as a leisure activity.

 

[Carrot]

huh? Denmark is not on any of those lists xD...

4 sub20 cubers out of 5.511791mio. is something like 0.726 out of a million (That should give a good rank O__o shouldn't it? xD)

 

[DAE_JA_VOO]

LOL. South Africa isn't even listed. Understandable though, since Emile Compion and myself are pretty much the only speedcubers in South Africa (and he's not even here. He lives in Canada). There are a few people I know that are "speed cubers", but they have averages in the 40s, so I'm not counting them right now

 

[Lucas Garron]

Observation #2: Japan, sometimes characterized as the "best" speedcubing country, primarily based on the results of a single cuber (and probably combined with irrational Japanophilia and racist assumptions about Asian mental superiority), is actually a medium-to-low performing country in terms of producing speedcubers.

How ignorant are you?
Reviewing the records, the following are are great cubers who've recently taken difficult WRs:

Yumu Tabuchi
Keisuke Hiraya
Takumi Yoshida
Yohei Oka
Kazuhito Iimura

In addition, they and others also tend to be very fast at 3x3x3 and OH.

Then there's the "older" Takayuki Ookusa and "really old" Yuki Hayashi. And for the purposes of these stats, Macky is just classic.
Then there are fast people like Sinpei Araki who've barely had any NRs, because other Japanese are too fast.

Yes, just picking on one thing, but you allow your statistics to be over-construed into a dismissal.
(Really, I think the Netherlands fits your description better. But we're getting off-point.)

 

[(X)]

In the first one you are talking about the top 100 cubers in the country ?

If this is the case, I haven't bothered calculating, every country gets a maximum of 100 cubers...

This may be the reason why China is so low...

I am not sure about this and would love if someone could (correct)/(explain to) me...

Norway does not have especialy many cubers but we only have 4,5 million citizens, so I assume that's why we are so high on the lists

EDIT: If you are talking about the top 100 cubers in the world it makes sense but the average is sub 14 that's why I got confused

 

[Zaxef]

Lol go Canada!

 

[Dene]

I'm not surprised that New Zealand doesn't make an appearance

The problem I have with these statistics is that there is a strong bias towards countries where there are more competitions. I mean, even if there were 100 sub12 NZ cubers, how could any of them have made an appearance? (I used New Zealand as an arbitrary country where there is yet to be a competition. Perhaps Australia would suit others as slightly more realisic >.<)

 

[beingforitself]

Observation #2: Japan, sometimes characterized as the "best" speedcubing country, primarily based on the results of a single cuber (and probably combined with irrational Japanophilia and racist assumptions about Asian mental superiority), is actually a medium-to-low performing country in terms of producing speedcubers.

How ignorant are you?
Reviewing the records, the following are are great cubers who've recently taken difficult WRs:

Yumu Tabuchi
Keisuke Hiraya
Takumi Yoshida
Yohei Oka
Kazuhito Iimura

In addition, they and others also tend to be very fast at 3x3x3 and OH.

Then there's the "older" Takayuki Ookusa and "really old" Yuki Hayashi. And for the purposes of these stats, Macky is just classic.
Then there are fast people like Sinpei Araki who've barely had any NRs, because other Japanese are too fast.

Yes, just picking on one thing, but you allow your statistics to be over-construed into a dismissal.
(Really, I think the Netherlands fits your description better. But we're getting off-point.)

I think you missed the point of my calculations: I wasn't measuring the absolute cubing output of countries (in which Japan clearly ranks in the top 3 if not number 1), but rather adjusting those outputs to total population size.

Regarding the list that you linked to, by my (possibly incorrect) counting, Japan has 9 different people listed, the Netherlands 7, Poland 7, and Hungary 4. However, Poland has less than a third the population of Japan, the Netherlands less than 15%, and Hungary less than 10%.

To say that total output necessarily makes a country "better" is akin to saying, "Well, the total GDP of Bangladesh is higher than that of Iceland, so I guess Bangladesh overall must have a higher standard of living."

 

[Lucas Garron]

Yeah, I realize I was being a bit annoying. I think my greatest qualm is with your stating things "in terms of producing speedcubers" using your statistic, which I don't think it's nearly good enough to do. "In terms of producing fast (3x3x3) cubers who go to competitions" is about right.

 

[Ton]

Well I do not think you can use statistics on such small numbers

e.g. now Netherlands score is .242 ( 4 cubers) for the Global Top-100 cubers

But if you take Global Top-101 cubers Is is already 0.304 for the Netherlands score (5 cubers)

When you set the boundary for the statistic, the effect of the small number is to great

The sub 20 list (your second list) is more inline with this

 

[rahulkadukar]

List India and be prepared for some very low numbers

 

[Faz]

I'm not surprised that New Zealand doesn't make an appearance

The problem I have with these statistics is that there is a strong bias towards countries where there are more competitions. I mean, even if there were 100 sub12 NZ cubers, how could any of them have made an appearance? (I used New Zealand as an arbitrary country where there is yet to be a competition. Perhaps Australia would suit others as slightly more realisic >.<)

Oh keep dreaming Dene.

Australia: 20 million citizens
5 sub 15 cubers, possibly more
Me, Levi, Chris, John, Matt = 0.25insertinsignificantdcecimalshere
Unofficial that is.

 

[Stefan]

The problem I have with these statistics is that there is a strong bias towards countries where there are more competitions.

Well I do not think you can use statistics on such small numbers

The statistic measures what the statistic measures. If you understand that, there's no problem. Of course you shouldn't look at it and conclude "Taiwan rules" and "China sucks". Because yes, the numbers are small and there are biases which would need to be taken into account to draw conclusions. But look at it this way: the data can be used to find these biases. Consider the bias an observation in itself, rather than a hindrance for observations. Instead of concluding "Indians suck at cubing" you can take their low value as indication that "Relatively few Indians have participated in WCA competitions", and then you can ask why that is and so on.

The statistic itself is perfectly fine. Problems only may arise once people draw conclusions from it.

 

[retr0]

Woo! UK ftl!!

 

[Ton]

The problem I have with these statistics is that there is a strong bias towards countries where there are more competitions.

Well I do not think you can use statistics on such small numbers

The statistic measures what the statistic measures. If you understand that, there's no problem. Of course you shouldn't look at it and conclude "Taiwan rules" and "China sucks". Because yes, the numbers are small and there are biases which would need to be taken into account to draw conclusions. But look at it this way: the data can be used to find these biases. Consider the bias an observation in itself, rather than a hindrance for observations. Instead of concluding "Indians suck at cubing" you can take their low value as indication that "Relatively few Indians have participated in WCA competitions", and then you can ask why that is and so on.

The statistic itself is perfectly fine. Problems only may arise once people draw conclusions from it.

I only looked if The Netherlands was better as Germany .....No conlusion ...I just looked....

 

[CharlieCooper]

zomg uk - lame.