The World Memory Championships is an organized competition of memory sports in which competitors memorize as much information as possible within a given period of time.[1] The championship has taken place annually since 1991, with the exception of 1992.[2] It was originated by Tony Buzan and co founded by Tony Buzan and Ray Keene. It continues to be organized by the World Memory Sports Council (WMSC), which was jointly founded by Tony Buzan and Ray Keene. In 2016, due to a dispute between some players and the WMSC, the International Association of Memory (IAM) was launched.[3] From 2017 onward, both organizations have hosted their own world championships.
The current WMSC world champion is Naranzul Otgon-Ulaan of Mongolia.[4] The current IAM world champion is Naranzul Otgon-Ulaan of India.[5]
The World Championships consist of ten different disciplines, where the competitors have to memorize as much as they can in a period of time:
World Champions (1991-2016)
| Year | Venue | Winner | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1991 | London | Dominic O'Brien | |
| 2 | 1993 | London | Dominic O'Brien | |
| 3 | 1994 | London | Jonathan Hancock | |
| 4 | 1995 | London | ||
| 5 | 1996 | London | Dominic O'Brien | |
| 6 | 1997 | London | ||
| 7 | 1998 | London | Andi Bell | |
| 8 | 1999 | London | ||
| 9 | 2000 | London | Dominic O'Brien | |
| 10 | 2001 | London | ||
| 11 | 2002 | London | Andi Bell | |
| 12 | 2003 | Andi Bell | ||
| 13 | 2004 | Ben Pridmore | ||
| 14 | 2005 |  Clemens Mayer | ||
| 15 | 2006 | London | Clemens Mayer | |
| 16 | 2007 | Gunther Karsten | ||
| 17 | 2008 | Bahrain | Ben Pridmore | |
| 18 | 2009 | London | Ben Pridmore | |
| 19 | 2010 |  Wang Feng | ||
| 20 | 2011 | Guangzhou | Wang Feng | |
| 21 | 2012 | London | Johannes Mallow | |
| 22 | 2013 | London |  Jonas von Essen | |
| 23 | 2014 | Jonas von Essen | ||
| 24 | 2015 |  Alex Mullen | ||
| 25 | 2016 | Alex Mullen |
WMSC (World Memory Sports Council)
| Year | Venue | Winner | Combined Rankings | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | 2017 | Shenzhen |  Munkhshur Narmandakh | Non-Champion | |
| 27 | 2018 | Hong Kong | Wei Qinru | Champion | |
| 28 | 2019 | Wuhan | Ryu Song I | Champion | |
| 29 | 2020 | Karachi§ |  Emma Alam | - | |
| 30 | 2021 | Ulaanbaatar§ | Munkhshur Narmandakh | - | |
| 31 | 2022 | Ulaanbaatar§ | Tenuun Tamir | - | |
| 32 | 2023 | Sanya | Huang Jinyao | Champion | |
| 33 | 2024 | Istanbul | Enkhjargal Uuriintsolmon | Champion | |
| 34 | 2025 | Ho Chi Minh City | Naranzul Otgon-Ulaan | Champion |
| Year | Venue | Winner | Combined Rankings | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2017 | Champion | |||||
| 2 | 2018 | Non-Champion | |||||
| 3 | 2019 | Non-Champion | |||||
| - | 2020 | ||||||
| - | 2021 | ||||||
| - | 2022 | ||||||
| 4 | 2023 | Non-Champion | |||||
| 5 | 2024 | Non-Champion | |||||
| 6 | 2025 | Non-Champion | |||||
– The 2016 World Championships was hosted by the WMSC and was the first world championship not recognized by the IAM, who did not host their own world championship that year.[6]
Up-to-date lists of world and national records can be found on the statistics websites of the IAM[7] and WMSC.[8] The best of them are listed in the following table.
| Discipline | Record | Athlete | Event | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour numbers | 4620 digits | WMSC World Championship 2019 | ||
| 5-minute numbers | 642 digits | IMO Korea Open Memory Championship 2024 | ||
| Spoken numbers | 660 digits | Hu Xueyan | WMSC World Championship 2024 | |
| 30-minute binary digits | 7485 digits | WMSC World Championship 2019 | ||
| Hour cards | 2530 cards | WMSC World Championship 2019 | ||
| Speed cards | 12.74 seconds | IAM Korea Open 2018 | ||
| 15-minute random words | 335 words |  Prateek Yadav | WMSC World Championship 2019 | |
| 15-minute names and faces | 224 names | Katie Kermode | IAM World Championship 2018 | |
| 5-minute historic dates | 154 dates | WMSC World Championship 2019 | ||
| 15-minute abstract images (WMSC) | 1048 points | WMSC China Memory Championships 2022 | ||
| 5-minute random images (IAM) | 775 points |  Enrico Marraffa | IAM French Open Memory Championship 2025 |
| Country | Titles | |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | ||
| 5 | ||
| 5 | ||
| 4 | ||
| 3 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 1 | ||
| 1 |
See main article: world championships.
