FIDE Rating List - January 2020

Another year, another FIDE Rating List (FRL). In last year's post, FIDE Rating List - January 2019, I wrote,

The format of the file was the same as in recent years, so it was easy to add it to my database that goes back to 1971.

Ditto for this year's post, with the additional observation that the January 2020 FRL marks the 50th anniversary since the publication of the first list. The year 2020 has another special characteristic -- for the first time the number of active players is less than the number of inactive players. Here's an update to the table I've been maintaining for the past few years:-

• 2020: >354K players; >181K marked inactive
• 2019: >325K players; >157K marked inactive
• [...]

For the record, the data I'm working with is from the FIDE Ratings Download:-

STANDARD
TXT format (01 Jan 2020, Sz: 7.88 MB)

These days there are so many FIDE rating lists that some limiting criterion is necessary, so I'll just continue with that plain vanilla FRL. As for federations, I discovered three code changes, shown at the top of the following chart. The first two lines look like a code change for the 'Democratic Republic of Congo'. The third line, LCA ('Saint Lucia'; a Caribbean island), must be a new federation. Its highest rated player is Martyr, Reginald, who was listed under TTO ('Trinidad & Tobago') in 2019.

As for the two lists in the bottom of the chart, they show (1) federations with the largest year-over-year increase in players, and (2) federations with the largest percentage increase (for federations with 100 or more players in 2019). Compare the similar charts in last year's post.