We all know that much of what we learned at medical school was wrong with the same being the case for today’s CPD. The difficulty is sifting those facts that are correct from those we need to update. One area where there have been many advances over recent decades is in the epidemiology of schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders where textbooks still on the library shelves are quite wrong in suggesting that there is little to interest the eager student: around 1% of people in the world have schizophrenia, it occurs equally in men and women with no geographical variation, and is of unknown aetiology. This dead-hand of schizophrenia epidemiology has been removed by recent research that reveals a rich landscape of variation and variability that gives clues to causation, can guide service development and even, perhaps, prevention. This article, based on a longer piece by Jablensky and colleagues replacing the out of date library stocks, sets out some of that evidence and why the subject is so intriguing. This is a set of epidemiological highlights.