You’re looking at, above, a chart showing which country read the most books by book count and hours spent doing so in a year.
It comes from CEOWORLD magazine’s Consumer Insights exclusive survey, which is based on more than 6,500,000 interviews across 102 countries in 2024.
The United States leads the world in reading, with 17 books per person annually, but the survey’s most striking finding is in the Middle East.
Iran ranks 22nd globally, with residents reading 6.36 books per year and spending 149 hours doing so. The UAE, by contrast, ranks 96th at just 2.71 books and 60 hours annually.
Saudi Arabia fares no better at 97th. Iran reads 135% more books per year than the UAE despite sharing a region.
Wealth and reading do not move together in this data.
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Ranked: Countries that Read the Most Books
| wdt_ID | wdt_created_by | wdt_created_at | wdt_last_edited_by | wdt_last_edited_at | Rank | Country | Annual Books Read | Yearly Reading Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | 1 | United States | 17 | 357 |
| 2 | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | 2 | India | 16 | 352 |
| 3 | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | 3 | United Kingdom | 15 | 343 |
| 4 | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | 4 | France | 14 | 305 |
| 5 | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | 5 | Italy | 13 | 278 |
| 6 | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | 6 | Canada | 12 | 232 |
| 7 | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | 7 | Russia | 11 | 223 |
| 8 | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | 8 | Australia | 10 | 217 |
| 9 | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | 9 | Spain | 9 | 187 |
| 10 | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | Patience | 18/09/2026 04:39 PM | 10 | Netherlands | 8 | 182 |
Source:
CEOWORLD Magazine Consumer Insights Survey, 2024
