A chess development index

 While looking at some issues regarding the makeup of various zones and regions for chess events, I did a little messing around with data. The goal is to try and equalise the makeup of zones, based on measurable criteria. 

As a first attempt I used recent rating data to come up with a number that measures the 'strength' of a federation. This does not just come down to average rating (in fact my first attempt ignored ratings), but to number of players and number of titled players. As a rough cut I came up with the following top 20 (with the score I found for them)

RUS 1842.932

GER 1101.273

USA 694.061

ESP         573.55

UKR 537.533

IND         532.761

SRB 465.432

FRA 448.532

POL 408.356

HUN 397.325

NED 315.182

CZE 295.835

ENG 245.108

ISR         243.719

CUB 239.675

ROU 232.501

ARG 225.578

CHN 221.433

CRO 216.734

ITA         199.595

Now I am not going to say what scoring system I used (or weightings), as I am interested in what jumps out here. India and China may look to be ranked too low, but there is a reason for this. Both countries do not rate enough events in the FIDE system, and this in part is the consequence. Also, Serbia might be a little high these days, but this is due to historical factors.

If you are interested, Australia is 38th (120.943) with NZ 73rd (29.868)