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Top 10 countries with the most winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature

… small countries “punch above their weight” … (2025 winner announced on 9 Oct.) ...

MARTINA NICOLLS

Oct 5

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The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Thursday 9 October in Stockholm, Sweden.

Here are the top 10 countries by the number of Nobel Prize in Literature winners from 1901 to 2024.

1. France: 16

2. United States of America: 13

3. United Kingdom: 13

4. Germany: 9

5. Sweden: 8

6. Poland: 6

7. Spain: 6

8. Italy: 6

9. Russia/USSR: 5

10. Ireland: 4

Sources differ a bit depending on how nationalities, dual citizenships, or old vs new countries, are handled, but this list gives a solid guide to the count.

Normalized by population (i.e. per capita), the number of laureates per million people reveal that some countries “punch above their weight” in producing Nobel laureates. From the data at StatsAreppim (“Nobel Prize for Literature Per Capita, 1901-2024”), the findings are:

Saint Lucia, a country in the Caribbean, is an outlier. It has a small population of about 200,000 (in 2024) but has produced one Nobel Literature laureate. That makes its per-capita ratio very high at 5.35 laureates per million people, topping the normalized population list.

Iceland also stands out similarly due to its small population, coming in second place. Even one laureate gives a high per-person rate of 2.5 laureates per million people.

Among mid-sized countries, Norway, Ireland, Sweden, and Denmark do well in positions 3 to 6 respectively, even though they all have only one Nobel laureate each. They have modest numbers of laureates, but relatively small populations, so the per capita ratio is comparatively strong (respectively 0.78, 0.77, 0.70; and 0.51).

France is in 7^th position with 16 laureates representing 0.24 laureates per million people.

The countries in 8^th and 9^th position are Finland in 8^th with one laureate, representing 0.18 laureates per million people, and United Kingdom in 9^th with 12 laureates, representing 0.17 laureates per million people.

In 10^th position is Belgium with one laureate, representing 0.09 laureates per million people.