Last Updated on September 23, 2021 by BookScouter
Maybe you’re sitting with a cup a coffee and a crossword puzzle. Maybe you’re a trivia buff. Maybe you simply muse about the workings of the world. For all of these situations, here is a list of the top countries for book publications per year. This list considers new titles and revised titles, not the millions of books printed every year. After all, worldwide book publishing revenues average about $113 billion!
Take a look at the top ten countries for the number of published books per year as of the latest year available. The more recent statistics were collected in 2014.
The Top Ten Countries
1. CHINA———————————————440,000
2. UNITED STATES———————————304,912
3. UNITED KINGDOM—————————–184,000
4. RUSSIAN FEDERATION————————101,981
5. INDIA———————————————-90,000
6. JAPAN———————————————82,589
7. GERMANY—————————————-82,048
8. ITALY———————————————61,966
9. SOUTH KOREA———————————-47,589
10. SPAIN———————————————44,000
Though China and the United States published more books than the United Kingdom, the U.K. produced more books per capita than any country in the world. Iceland, an island country a little over 100,000 square miles, publishes 1,000 new titles every year in a language only 320,000 people speak.
