IQ 179
An IQ of 179 is higher than almost everyone: about 1 in 14 million.
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- 99.999th
- Percentile, at least
- 1 in 14 million
- Score 179 or higher
- Profoundly Gifted
- Classification
On the standard scale that is 5.27 standard deviations above average. No test has been checked against enough people to confirm a score this high.
An IQ of 179 falls in the profoundly gifted IQ range, which starts at 160. Find 179 on the IQ chart, or check how rare any score is with the IQ rarity calculator.
IQ 179: beyond what most tests can measure
Taken literally, the bell curve puts 179 at 1 in 14 million: about 5 people in the UK and about 560 people worldwide. Treat that as an illustration of the model rather than a head count.
No test has enough people in its norm sample to check its accuracy at 179. In a 2,200-person sample the bell curve expects effectively nobody at 179 or higher.
None of this means nobody is this able. It means a single number is not a reliable way to describe them.
How claims like "179 IQ" arise
Most very high numbers you see online come from one of a few sources, and knowing which one produced a 179 tells you how much weight to put on it.
- Ratio IQ. Early childhood tests divided mental age by real age. A 6-year-old solving puzzles like a typical 10.7-year-old got a ratio IQ of 179. Modern deviation IQs do not work this way.
- Historiometric estimates. Researchers such as Catharine Cox (1926) estimated IQs for famous people from biographies. Some of her adjusted estimates went above 200. They are educated guesses, not test results.
- Repetition without a source. Numbers attached to celebrities are often copied from site to site with no test report behind them.
Famous estimates: Newton, da Vinci and the 160+ club
Isaac Newton and Leonardo da Vinci are usually given estimates of 160 or more, and they are among 42 such profiles here. Only 4 go as high as 179. All are judgements from biographies, not test results.
As far as anyone knows, Albert Einstein never took an IQ test. The 160 figure repeated online is an estimate. See the Einstein profile for what it rests on.
How many people have an IQ of 179 or higher?
On a bell curve with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, about 0.000007% of people score 179 or higher. Applied to whole populations:
| Where | Population | IQ 179+ |
|---|---|---|
| UK | 68 million | 5 |
| US | 335 million | 23 |
| World | 8.1 billion | 560 |
In a city the size of London, about 9 million, you would expect about one person to score 179 or higher.
Exactly 179, counting anyone between 178.5 and 179.5, is about 1 in 39 million. In the US that is about 9 people, and in the UK about 2 people.
Treat these as orders of magnitude, not census data. They apply the standard model to everyone, and individual tests have their own norms.
How rare is an IQ of 179?
Going from 174 to 179 makes a score 5.8 times rarer, and going on to 184 multiplies the rarity by another 6.5. Near 179, each single point adds about 44% to the rarity.
What your 179 could really be. No test is precise this far out. Even a 5-point error band, from 174 to 184, spans a rarity gap of about 38 times, so the exact number matters much less than "very far above average".
Which scale was it on? Most modern tests use a standard deviation of 15, which is what this page assumes. If your 179 came from a test using an SD of 16, it is about 174 on the SD 15 scale. From an SD 24 scale, used by some Cattell-style reports, it is about 149.
Famous people with an estimated IQ near 179
Estimates this high are reserved for a small group of scientists, artists and thinkers. These sit near 179. None of these are test scores. They are estimates from biographical evidence, and each profile explains its basis.
- Francis Galton's IQ (estimated 180+): Polymath & Statistician, 19th Century. 1 point above IQ 179.
Fictional characters near 179
Just for fun: the fictional characters whose fan-estimated IQs sit near 179.
- Hannibal Lecter's IQ (fan estimate 180): Silence of the Lambs. 1 point above IQ 179.
See all historical IQ estimates or all fictional character IQs.
179 compared with nearby scores
How 179 stacks up against the scores just around it and the round numbers people usually ask about. Each score links to its own page.
| IQ | Classification | Percentile | Score higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| IQ 100 | Average | 50th | 50% |
| IQ 110 | High Average | 74.8th | 25% |
| IQ 120 | Superior | 90.9th | 9.1% |
| IQ 130 | Gifted | 97.7th | 2.3% |
| IQ 140 | Gifted | 99.62nd | 0.38% |
| IQ 150 | Genius | 99.96th | 0.043% |
| IQ 174 | Profoundly Gifted | >99.999th | 0.00004% |
| IQ 178 | Profoundly Gifted | >99.999th | 0.00001% |
| IQ 179 | Profoundly Gifted | >99.999th | 0.000007% |
| IQ 180 | Profoundly Gifted | >99.999th | 0.0000048% |
| IQ 184 | Profoundly Gifted | >99.999th | 0.0000011% |
Questions about an IQ of 179
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What does an IQ of 179 mean?
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Next in IQ scores
More in IQ scores
- IQ 130 percentileThe usual gifted line
- IQ 140 percentileVery superior, rarer than 1 in 200
- SAT, ACT and GRE to IQConvert a test score to IQ
Related tools
- IQ rarity calculatorHow rare a score is, as 1 in N
- IQ chartEvery band and what it means
- IQ bell curvePlot a score on the distribution
Is your IQ above 179?
See where you land next to 179 with 25 visual reasoning questions.
25 questions · about 12 minutes
Percentiles and counts use a normal distribution with mean 100 and standard deviation 15. Real tests have their own norms, confidence intervals and ceilings, so treat every figure here as an approximation, not a diagnosis. Two tests often give different numbers for the same person: here is why.
By the LifeScore Editorial Team. Reviewed October 2026. Editorial policy