Retail

Visualized: Which Countries Publish the Most Books in Each Region?

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4 weeks ago

September 9, 2024

Kayla Zhu

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The Top Book Publishing Countries in Each Region (2022)

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Despite the rise in other forms of digital entertainment, the book industry is still growing.

The publishing industry is forecasted to grow by $19.37 billion between 2023 to 2028, accelerating at a CAGR of 1.2% during this period, according to Research and Markets.

This graphic visualizes the number of books published by the number of International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN, a unique product identifier for cataloging and tracking book sales) registered in 2022 for the top countries in each global region.

The data comes from the International Publishers Association (IPA) and covers 76 IPA member countries, comprising around 80% of the world’s population.

Which Countries Publish The Most Books in each Region?

Below, we show the top book-publishing countries by region, and how many ISBNs they registered in 2022.

Region	Country	ISBNs Registered in 2022
Africa	🇳🇬 Nigeria	14,392
Africa	🇹🇳 Tunisia	3,143
Africa	🇬🇭 Ghana	2,000
Asia	🇯🇵 Japan	902,311
Asia	🇰🇷 South Korea	338,237
Asia	🇮🇳 India	281,091
Europe	🇩🇪 Germany	277,000
Europe	🇬🇧 United Kingdom	153,167
Europe	🇮🇹 Italy	139,970
Latin America and the Caribbean	🇧🇷 Brazil	179,042
Latin America and the Caribbean	🇦🇷 Argentina	35,500
Latin America and the Caribbean	🇨🇴 Colombia	20,840
North America	🇺🇸 United States	3,279,217
North America	🇲🇽 Mexico	27,534
North America	🇨🇦 Canada	21,105
Oceania	🇦🇺 Australia	31,708
Oceania	🇳🇿 New Zealand	2,475

The United States is by far the world’s largest book market, registering nearly four times as many ISBNs as second-place Japan in 2022.

The U.S. is also home to the largest publishers in the world. Penguin Random House (PRH), Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster are known as the Big Five in the publishing world.

According to WordsRated, the Big Five control over 80% of the trade book market in the United States as of 2022.

South Korea has the highest number of publishers among the surveyed countries, with 75,324 publishers in the country. In 2023, a notable trend in the Korean publishing market was the surge in popularity of self-help books.

According to Kyobo Bookstore, Korea’s largest book retailer, self-help titles dominated the charts, claiming the top three bestsellers and 15 spots within the top 100.