Who Wins the Nobel

01 · Volume

Laureates per decade

Each laureate-prize counted once; shared prizes count every winner

Select a bar segment to see who won.

• Physics
• Chemistry
• Medicine
• Literature
• Peace
• Economics

Laureate numbers more than doubled, from 57 in the 1900s to 123 in the 2000s, and 70% of that growth was in physics, chemistry and medicine, while literature has held at 6–11 a decade. The dips in the 1910s and 1940s are the world wars, when 14 and 18 prizes went unawarded.

*2020–2026 only (7 of 10 years). Economic Sciences was first awarded in 1969.

02 · Age

Age at award

Each dot is one laureate; the line is the linear trend with its 95% confidence band

Select a dot to see the laureate.

Laureates are getting older overall: the median physics winner was 45 before 1950 and 72 since 2000, the steepest rise of any category. Peace is the only prize trending younger, from a median of 68 to 60.

People only (1,005); organizations have no age. For 23 laureates only the birth year is known, so their age may be off by one.

03 · Gender

Women among laureates

Share of awards to people that went to women, by decade

Select a bar to see the women who won that decade.

Women account for 70 of 1,005 awards to people (7%); their share stayed below 10% in every decade until the 2010s, and in the 2020s so far it's 20% (16 of 82). Physics is the most lopsided: 5 of its 231 awards went to women.

*2020–2026 only (7 of 10 years). Organizations are excluded. Marie Curie counts twice (1903, 1911).

04 · Teams

Solo vs. shared prizes

Share of each decade's prizes awarded to one, two or three winners

Select a bar segment to see the laureates.

• Three winners
• Two winners
• Solo

Science has become a team sport: before 1950, 77% of physics, chemistry and medicine prizes went to one person; since 2000 it's 9%, and 65% are split three ways, the most the rules allow. Literature remains a solo prize (115 of 119 went to one writer), while economics has followed the sciences, 22% solo since 2000.

*2020–2026 only (7 of 10 years). Counted per prize; years with no award are left out. Organizations count as one winner.

05 · Geography

Where laureates are born vs. where they work

Awards to people, by country of birth and by country of the prize-winning work (top 10 of each)

Select a country to see who was born or worked there.

• Born there
• Worked there

The US is where Nobel work gets done: 435 awards went to people working there, against 302 to people born there, and 139 of those 435 went to people born abroad. The biggest net source is Poland: 29 awards went to people born in what is now Poland, but only 6 to people working there.

Today's borders: someone born in Breslau, Germany, counts as Poland. Scotland and Northern Ireland count as the UK. Place of work is the affiliation at the time of the award, or the country of residence when there is none. Net = worked − born. Repeat winners count once per award. Not shown: 3 with no recorded birthplace and 18 with no place of work.

06 · Movement

From birthplace to prize-winning work

Each arc runs from where a laureate was born to where they did the work, brightest at the destination

Click the map to explore it: drag to pan, scroll to zoom, right-drag (or Shift-drag, or two fingers) to tilt and rotate, and select an arc or dot to see the laureate.

In 277 of 985 awards (28%), the laureate did the prize-winning work outside the country they were born in, and 139 of those moves ended in the US. The typical distance from birthplace to place of work has grown from 297 km before 1950 to 1,119 km since 2000.

Dots mark laureates who worked where they were born. Fainter arcs end at a country's center: no institution is recorded, only a country of residence. Not shown: 51 awards (mostly organizations and Peace laureates) with no birthplace or place of work. Distances use city-level arcs only. Country outlines: Natural Earth.