Most-Printed Books in History (Estimated)
Key Findings
About This Dataset
Most-Printed Books in History (Estimated)The Bible stands far above every other book, with an estimated 5 billion or more copies printed and distributed, several times the total of any single best-selling novel. The Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, the Little Red Book, and the Qur'an follow at around 800 million to 900 million each, both spread largely through mass state or religious distribution rather than commercial sale. The Book of Mormon at roughly 200 million and the Bhagavad Gita at about 162 million round out the group. Because these works are produced by many unrelated publishers over long periods, and sometimes given away rather than sold, exact figures are impossible to pin down, so all values here should be read as broad lower-bound estimates rather than precise counts.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- Wikipedia (List of best-selling books)
- Coverage
- 5 entities · 5 observations
- Measure
- Estimated Copies Printed (Millions)
- Last updated
- 12 July 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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