FIDE Rating List - January 2016

It's that time of year time again, when I download the January edition of the FIDE rating list, load it into a database, and do some simple queries. Last year I did a series of nine posts, starting with FIDE Rating Lists Restored (January 2015) and ending with Into the Melting Pot (February 2015; including a summary of the other posts).

Through the years, the FIDE rating lists (FRL) have become more complicated. The main download page, FIDE Download Rating List, offers six different lists (the following bullets are copied from that page):-

• Full list of players (not rated included) STD, RPD, BLZ combined
• FIDE rating list in old format (not rated included - only Standard rating)
• Full list of players LEGACY format (not rated included with only over the board titles) STD, RPD, BLZ combined
• STANDARD rating list
• RAPID rating list
• BLITZ rating list

Last year I decided to stick with the 'STANDARD rating list' and this year I'm doing the same. Some day I might look at the 'full list', but I don't have the time or the interest for that now.

In 2015, the FRL listed 197.590 players, of which 82.407 were marked inactive; in 2016, the FRL has 231.238 names, of which 96.535 are marked inactive. The following chart shows which of the 180 federations had the largest increase in the number of players, whether active or inactive.

FIDE Rating Lists: Jan 2015 & Jan 2016

Left: Increase in players; Right: New federations

The four federations on the right did not appear on the 2015 list. They should be merged into my table of FIDE Country and Federation Codes, but I'll save that task for another day.