Where is Rugby Most Popular?

[Rowan Quinn]

The following figures represent the percentage of citizens registered as rugby players by country:

Tonga 14
Samoa 10.7
Fiji 7.2
New Zealand 3
Wales 2.4
Ireland 1.6
Swaziland 1
Australia 0.95
Scotland 0.7
England 0.68
South Africa 0.6
Namibia 0.6
Botswana 0.5
France 0.43
Sri Lanka 0.23
Uruguay 0.2
PNG 0.2
Hong Kong 0.18
Singapore 0.18
Georgia 0.17
Zimbabwe 0.17
Tunisia 0.16
Malaysia 0.16
Italy 0.14
Argentina 0.13
Solomans 0.13
Malta 0.1
Moldova 0.085
Japan 0.08
Madagascar 0.08
Zambia 0.08
Canada 0.07
Portugal 0.07
Belgium 0.07
Spain 0.065
Netherlands 0.065
Lithuania 0.06
Uganda 0.06
Senegal 0.05
Switzerland 0.05
Czech. 0.04
USA 0.034
Romania 0.034
Sweden 0.03
Denmark 0.03
Hungary 0.03
UAE 0.03
Kenya 0.02
Cameroon 0.02
Bulgaria 0.02
Serbia 0.02
Taiwan 0.02
Thailand 0.018
Poland 0.018
Russia 0.016
Kazakhstan 0.016
Morocco 0.015
Germany 0.012
Chile 0.01
Ivory Coast 0.009
Ukraine 0.005
Korea 0.0039
Brazil 0.0024
Pakistan 0.002
India 0.0007
China 0.00004

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I'm guessing about a third of all males between ages 5 & 40 are registered rugby players in Tonga, while Samoans and Melanesian Fijians wouldn't be far behind.

Meanwhile, who would've thought - rugby more popular per capita in Swaziland than Australia & France according to these stats, more popular in Botswana than France too, and more popular in Tunisia and Malaysia per capita than in Italy & Argentina.

Also, there are more registered players per capita in Lithuania and Uganda than there are in Romania or the USA, while Hungary, Serbia and the UAE are ahead of the likes of Russia, Chile and Brazil