Global spread of the printing press

The global spread of the printing press began with the invention of the printing press with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany c. 1439.^[1] Western printing technology was adopted in all world regions by the end of the 19th century, displacing the manuscript and block printing.

Spread of printing in Europe in the 15th century

European output of printed books from the 15th through the 18th century

In the Western world, the operation of a press became synonymous with the enterprise of publishing and lent its name to a new branch of media, the "press" (see List of the oldest newspapers).^[2]

Spread of the Gutenberg press

Germany

Modern stamp commemorating the Gutenberg Bible, the first major European work printed by mechanical movable type

Gutenberg's first major print work was the 42-line Bible in Latin, printed probably between 1452 and 1454 in the German city of Mainz. After Gutenberg lost a lawsuit against his investor, Johann Fust, Fust put Gutenberg's employee Peter Schöffer in charge of the print shop. Thereupon Gutenberg established a new one with the financial backing of another money lender. With Gutenberg's monopoly revoked, and the technology no longer secret, printing spread throughout Germany and beyond, diffused first by emigrating German printers, but soon also by foreign apprentices.

Europe

In rapid succession, printing presses were set up in Central and Western Europe. Major towns, in particular, functioned as centers of diffusion (Cologne 1466, Rome 1467, Venice 1469, Paris 1470, Buda 1473, Kraków 1473, London 1477). In 1481, barely 30 years after the publication of the 42-line Bible, the small Netherlands already featured printing shops in 21 cities and towns, while Italy and Germany each had shops in about 40 towns at that time. According to one estimate, "by 1500, 1000 printing presses were in operation throughout Western Europe and had produced 8 million books"^[3] and during the 1550s there were "three hundred or more" printers and booksellers in Geneva alone.^[4] The output was in the order of twenty million volumes and rose in the sixteenth century tenfold to between 150 and 200 million copies.^[5] Germany and Italy were considered the two main centres of printing in terms of quantity and quality.

Rest of the world

Further information: History of printing in East Asia and Woodblock printing

The near-simultaneous discovery of sea routes to the West (Christopher Columbus, 1492) and East (Vasco da Gama, 1498) and the subsequent establishment of trade links greatly facilitated the global spread of Gutenberg-style printing. Traders, colonists, but perhaps most importantly, missionaries exported printing presses to the new European oversea domains, setting up new print shops and distributing printing material. In the Americas, the first extra-European print shop was founded in Mexico City in 1544 (1539?), and soon after Jesuits started operating the first printing press^{[citation needed]} in Asia (Goa, 1556).

According to Suraiya Faroqhi, lack of interest and religious reasons were among the reasons for the slow adoption of the printing press outside Europe: Thus, printing in the Arabic script, after encountering strong opposition by Muslim legal scholars and manuscript scribes, remained formally or informally prohibited in the Ottoman Empire between 1483 and 1729, according to some sources even on penalty of death,^[6][7][8] while some movable Arabic type printing was done by Pope Julius II (1503−1512) for distribution among Middle Eastern Christians,^[9] and the oldest Qur’an printed with movable type was produced in Venice in 1537/1538 for the Ottoman market.

Hebrew texts and presses were imported across the Middle East - as early as 1493 - Constantinople, Fez (1516), Cairo (1557) and Safed (1577). Disquiet among Muslims regarding the publication of religious texts in this way may have dampened down their production.^[10]

In India, reports are that Jesuits "presented a polyglot Bible to the Emperor Akbar in 1580 but did not succeed in arousing much curiosity."^[11] But also practical reasons seem to have played a role. The English East India Company, for example, brought a printer to Surat in 1675, but was not able to cast type in Indian scripts, so the venture failed.^[11]

North America saw the adoption by the Cherokee Indian Elias Boudinot who published the tribe's first newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, from 1828, partly in the Cherokee language, using the Cherokee script recently invented by his compatriot Sequoyah.

In the 19th century, the arrival of the Gutenberg-style press to the shores of Tahiti (1818), Hawaii (1821) and other Pacific islands, marked the end of a global diffusion process which had begun almost 400 years earlier. At the same time, the "old style" press (as the Gutenberg model came to be termed in the 19th century), was already in the process of being displaced by industrial machines like the steam powered press (1812) and the rotary press (1833), which radically departed from Gutenberg's design, but were still of the same development line.^[12]

Dates by location

The following represents a selection:^[13]

Germany, Austria and German printers in Central Europe

See also: Books in Germany

Date	City	Printer [14]	Comment
1452–53[15]	Mainz	Johannes Gutenberg, Peter Schöffer, Johann Fust (investor)	Gutenberg Bible
~1457[15]	Bamberg	Albrecht Pfister, Johann Sensenschmid (from 1480)	Pfister: first woodcut book illustration c. 1461[16][17]
1460[15]	Strassburg	Johannes Mentelin,[18] Johann Grüninger (1482)	In 1605, Johann Carolus publishes the German Relation aller Fuernemmen und gedenckwuerdigen Historien (Collection of all distinguished and commemorable news), recognized by the World Association of Newspapers as the first newspaper.[19]
~1465[15]	Cologne	Ulrich Zell,[17] Busaus, Gymnici, Mylij, Quentell
1468[15]	Augsburg	Günther Zainer[18]
Not later than 1469[15]	Nuremberg	Johann Sensenschmidt, Johannes Regiomontanus (1472–75), Anton Koberger (1473–1513)[17]Johann Endter (1625-1670)	Nuremberg Chronicle
~1471[15]	Speyer[17]
~1472[15]	Lauingen[20]
1473[15]	Esslingen am Neckar
1473[15]	Merseburg[20]
1473[15]	Ulm[20]
~1473–74[15]	Erfurt
~1474[15]	Lübeck[20]		1488, Missale Aboense and other versions, first books for the Scandinavian and Finnish markets, by Bartholomeus Ghotan
1475[21]	Breslau (now Wrocław)	Kasper Elyan of Glogau [22]	Kasper's print shop remained operational until 1483 with an overall output of 11 titles.[21]
1475[15]	Trento
~1475[15]	Blaubeuren[20]
~1475[15]	Rostock[20]
1476[15]	Reutlingen
~1478–79[15]	Memmingen	Albrecht Kunne [de][23]
1479[15]	Würzburg[20]	Georg Reyser
1479[15]	Magdeburg
1480[15]	Passau
1480[15]	Leipzig	Konrad Kachelofen [de], Andreas Friesner
~1480[15]	Eichstätt
1482[15]	Vienna	Johann Winterburger[20]
1482[15]	Munich	Johann Schauer
~1482[15]	Heidelberg[20]
1484[15]	Ingolstadt
1485[15]	Münster
~1485[15]	Regensburg
1486[24]	Schleswig	Stephan Arndes
~1486[15]	Stuttgart
~1488[15]	Hamburg
1489[15]	Hagenau
1491[15]	Freiburg
1492[15]	Marienburg	Jakob Karweyse	Only two editions printed[25]

Rest of Europe

Italy

See also: Books in Italy

Date	City	Printer [26]	Comment
1465[27]	Subiaco	Arnold Pannartz, Konrad Sweynheym
1467[27]	Rome	Ulrich Hahn, Arnold Pannartz, Konrad Sweynheym (from 1467)
1469[27]	Venice	Johann von Speyer, shortly afterwards Nikolaus Jenson from Tours, Aldus Manutius	Johann was granted a privilege for 5 years for movable type printing by the Senate, but died soon after.[28] In 1501, Ottaviano Petrucci produced the first book of sheet music printed from movable type.
1470[27]	Milan	Filippo de Lavagna, Antonio Zaroto, shortly afterwards Waldarfer von Regensburg
1470[27]	Naples
1471[27]	Florence	Demetrius Damilas	Earliest printing in Greek
1471[27]	Genoa
1471[15]	Ferrara
1471[27]	Bologna		Probably in 1477, claimed to have the first engraved illustrations,[29] although the 1476 Boccaccio edition by Colard Mansion in Bruges already had copper engravings[30]
1471[15]	Padua
1471[15]	Treviso
1472[15]	Parma
1473[15]	Pavia
1473[15]	Brescia
~1473–74[15]	Modena
1483	Soncino	Israel Nathan ben Samuel and Soncino Family
1484[15]	Siena

In the 15th century, printing presses were established in 77 Italian cities and towns. At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, of which 130 (86%) were north of Rome.^[31] During these two centuries a total of 2894 printers were active in Italy, with only 216 of them located in southern Italy. Ca. 60% of the Italian printing shops were situated in six cities (Venice, Rome, Milan, Naples, Bologna and Florence), with the concentration of printers in Venice being particularly high (ca. 30%).^[32]

Switzerland

Date	City	Printer	Comment
~1468[15]	Basel	Berthold Ruppel[23]
1470[15]	Beromünster	Helias Helye [de][20]
~1474[15]	Burgdorf[20]
1478[15]	Geneva	Adam Steinschaber[23]
~1479[15]	Zürich
1577	Schaffhausen
1577[33]	St. Gallen
1585[33]	Fribourg
1664	Einsiedeln

France

See also: Books in France

Date	City	Printer [34]	Comment
1470[15]	Paris	Ulrich Gering, Martin Crantz, Michael Friburger
1473[15]	Lyon	Guillaume Le Roy,[23] Buyer
~1475[15]	Toulouse
1476–77[15]	Angers
~1477–78[15]	Vienne
1478–79[15]	Chablis
1479[15]	Poitiers
1480[15]	Caen
1480–82[15]	Rouen
1483[15]	Troyes
1484–85[15]	Rennes
1486[15]	Abbeville
~1486–88[15]	Besançon
1490–91[15]	Orléans
1491[15]	Dijon
1491[15]	Angoulême
1493[15]	Nantes[35]
1493–94[15]	Tours
1495–96[15]	Limoges
1497[15]	Avignon
1500[15]	Perpignan

Apart from the cities above, a small number of lesser towns also set up printing presses.

Spain

See also: Books in Spain

Date	City	Printer [36]	Comment
1471-1472[15]	Segovia	Johannes Parix
~1472-74[15]	Seville
~1472-1473[15]	Barcelona	Heinrich Botel, Georgius vom Holtz, Johannes Planck
~1472–73[15]	Valencia	Lambert Palmart, Jakob Vinzlant
1475[15]	Zaragoza	Matthias Flander, Paul Hurus
~1480[15]	Salamanca
1485[15]	Burgos
1486	Toledo[33]
1496[15]	Granada	Meinrad Ungut, Hans Pegnitzer
1499[15]	Montserrat		Oldest publishing house in the world still running
1500	Madrid[33]

Belgium

Date	City	Printer [37]	Comment
1473[38]	Aalst	Dirk Martens
1473–74[15]	Leuven	Johann von Westphalen
~1473–74[15]	Bruges	Colard Mansion	Worked with, and (?) trained William Caxton, printing the first books in English (Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye) and also French, as well as the first book to use engravings for illustrations.
1475–76[15]	Brussels
1480[15]	Oudenaarde	Arend De Keysere
1481[15]	Antwerp	Matt. Van der Goes
1483[15]	Ghent	Arend De Keysere

Netherlands

See also: Books in the Netherlands

Date	City	Printer [39]	Comment
1473[15]	Utrecht
1477[15]	Gouda	Gerard Leeu
1477[15]	Deventer	Richard Paffroad
1477[15]	Zwolle
1477[15]	Delft	Jacob Jacobzoon
1483[15]	Haarlem	Jacob Bellaert

In 1481, printing was already being done in 21 towns and cities.

Hungary

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1472[40][41]	Buda (now Budapest)	Andreas Hess	The first work printed on Hungarian soil was the Latin history book Chronica Hungarorum published on 5 June 1472.

In the 16th century, a total of 20 print shops were active in 30 different places in Hungary, as some of them were moving several times due to political instability.^[42]

Poland

Main article: Early printing in Poland

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1473[43]	Kraków	Kasper Straube	The oldest printed work in Poland is the Latin Calendarium cracoviense (Cracovian Calendar), a single-sheet astronomical almanac for the year 1474. Although Straube continued to published in Kraków until 1477, printing became permanently established in Kraków, and Poland, only after 1503.[25] In 1491, the first book in Cyrillic script was published by Schweipolt Fiol from Franconia.[44] In 1513, Florian Ungler printed Hortulus Animae, the first book in the Polish language.
1499[15]	Danzig	Franz Rhode	1538: Wisby'sches Waterrecht, 1540: Narratio Prima
1580[33]	Warsaw
1593	Lwów[33]	Matthias Bernhart

In the 15th and 16th centuries printing presses were also established in Poznań, Lwów, Brześć Litewski and Vilnius.^[21]

Czech Republic

Date	City	Printer	Comment
~1475–76[15]	Plzeň	Mikuláš Bakalář (name known since 1488)	Statuta Ernesti (1476, Latin), The New Testament (1476, two editions in Czech), Passionale, The Chronicle of Troy (c. 1476, Czech)
1486[15]	Brno	Conradus Stahel, Matthias Preinlein	Agenda Olomucensis 1486 and further 20, partly small prints in Latin until 1488.[45]
1487[15]	Prague		The Chronicle of Troy 1487, Psalter 1487, The Bible 1488 (all in Czech); since 1512 printing in Hebrew, since 1517 in Cyrillic, too.
1489[15]	Kutná Hora	Martin z Tišnova	The Bible (in Czech)

England

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1476[46]	Westminster	William Caxton	The first dated prints in England are an indulgence dating to 13 December 1476 (date written in by hand), and the Dicts or Sayings, completed on 18 November 1477. Between 1472 and 1476, Caxton had already published several English works on the continent (see Bruges above).[46]
1478[15]	Oxford	Theoderic Rood
~1479[15]	St Albans	'Schoolmaster'; John Haule [47]	The St Albans Press produced eight known prints including The Chronicles of England.[15]
1480[15]	London	John Lettou, William Machlinia, Wynkyn de Worde

Denmark

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1482[24]	Odense	Johann Snell	Snell was the first to introduce printing both in Denmark and Sweden.[24]
1493[24]	Copenhagen	Gottfried von Ghemen	Von Ghemen published in Copenhagen from 1493 to 1495 and from 1505 to 1510. In the meantime, he was active in the Dutch town of Leiden. For 200 years, official policy confined printing in Denmark largely to Copenhagen.[48]

Sweden

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1483[24]	Stockholm	Johann Snell	Snell published the Dialogus creaturarum on Riddarholmen island in Stockholm on December 20, 1483.
Before 1495[15]	Vadstena
1510[33]	Uppsala

Portugal

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1487[49]	Faro	Samuel Gacon (also called Porteiro)	The country's first printed book was the Hebrew Pentateuch, the Faro Pentateuch published by the Jew Samuel Gacon in southern Portugal, after having fled from the Spanish Inquisition.[49]
1488[50]	Chaves[50]	Unknown [50]	According to the German scholar Horch the Sacramental is the first book printed in Portuguese, and not Ludolphus de Saxonia's Livro de Vita Christi of 1495 as previously assumed.[50]
1489[15]	Lisbon	Rabbi Zorba, Raban Eliezer	Eliezer Toledano's Hebrew press was active with his foreman Judah Gedalia from 1489 until the expulsion in 1497
1492[15]	Leiria
1494[15]	Braga
1536	Coimbra
1571	Viseu
1583	Angra do Heroísmo, Azores
1622	Porto

Croatia

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1483[15]	Kosinj, Lika		The Printing house of Kosinj [hr] is known for producing the Missale Romanum Glagolitice on February 22nd 1483. The Croatian text known as "Misal po zakonu rimskoga dvora" was significant as it is the first missal in Europe which was not printed in Latin script; only 28 years after the Gutenberg bible.
1494[15]	Senj	Blaž Baromić	Blaž Baromić with his co-workers established printing house in Senj based on glagolitic script. Their first work was the Breviary of Senj.
1530[51]	Rijeka	Šimun Kožičić Benja

Serbia and Montenegro

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1493–94[15]	Cetinje	Đurađ IV Crnojević, Makarije	Đurađ IV Crnojević used the printing press brought to Cetinje by his father Ivan I Crnojević to print the first books in southeastern Europe, in 1493. The Crnojević printing press operated from 1493 through 1496, turning out religious books of which five have been preserved: Oktoih prvoglasnik, Oktoih petoglasnik, Psaltir, Molitvenik and Četvorojevanđelje (the first Bible in Serbian language). Đurađ managed the printing of the books, wrote prefaces and afterwords, and developed sophisticated tables of Psalms with the lunar calendar. The books from the Crnojević press were printed in two colors, red and black, and were richly ornamented. They served as models for many of the subsequent books printed in Cyrillic.
1537	village Vrutci of Rujno Župa near Užice,	hieromonk Teodosije	The Rujan Four Gospels of the Rujno Monastery printing house
1552[33]	Belgrade	Trojan Gundulić	Četvorojevanđelje, Serbulje

By 1500, the cut-off point for incunabula, 236 towns in Europe had presses, and it is estimated that twenty million books had been printed for a European population of perhaps seventy million.^[16]

Scotland

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1507[52] (the earliest surviving item is dated 4 April 1508)	Edinburgh	Walter Chepman and Androw Myllar	William Elphinstone, the Bishop of Aberdeen, was anxious to get a breviary published (see Aberdeen Breviary), and petitioned King James IV to have a printing press set up. Myllar had previously been involved with printing in France, where Scots authors had traditionally had their books printed (see Auld Alliance). The earliest works were mainly small books (approximately 15 cm), but at least one book was printed in folio format, Blind Harry's The Wallace.[53]
1552	St Andrews[54]	John Scot[55]
1571	Stirling	Robert Lekprevik
1622	Aberdeen	Edward Raban
1638	Glasgow	George Anderson
1651	Leith	Evan Tyler
1685	Campbeltown	unknown printer
1694	Maybole	unknown printer

Romania

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1508	Târgoviște	Hieromonk Makarije	Macarie is brought into Wallachia by the prince Radu cel Mare. The first printed book in Romania is made in 1508, Liturghierul. Octoihul is also printed in 1510, and Evangheliarul is printed in 1512[56]
1534	Brașov	Johannes Honterus	At the time, the city was a part of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom.
1545	Târgoviște	Dimitrije Ljubavić	Mostly religious books are printed, among them being Molitvenik.[57] Books printed in Wallachia were also reprinted for use in Moldavia, which at the time did not have its own press.
1550[58]	Klausenburg (Cluj-Napoca)		At the time, the city was a part of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom.
1561	Brașov	Coresi	Întrebare creştinească (Catehismul)

Greece

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1515	Saloniki
1817	Corfu

Lithuania and Belarus

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1522[33]	Vilnius	Francysk Skaryna[59]	The Little Traveller’s Book[60]
1553	Brest	Bernard Wojewódka[61]	Catechism

Iceland

Date	City	Printer	Comment
ca. 1530[62]	Holar	Jon Matthiasson (Swede)	Press imported on the initiative of Bishop Jon Arason. First known local print is the Latin songbook Breviarium Holense of 1534.[62]

Norway

Date	City	Printer	Comment
mid-16th century	Trondheim
1644	Oslo

Ireland

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1551	Dublin[63]	Humphrey Powell	The first book printed was the Book of Common Prayer.[63]

Russia

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1553−54[44]	Moscow	Unknown	According to recent research, the Gospel Book and six others published then.[44]
1564[64]	Moscow	Ivan Fyodorov (printer)	Acts of the Apostles (Apostol) is the first dated book printed in Russia.[64]
1711[65]	Saint Petersburg
1815	Astrakhan

Until the reign of Peter the Great printing in Russia remained confined to the print office established by Fedorov in Moscow. In the 18th century, annual printing output gradually rose from 147 titles in 1724 to 435 (1787), but remained constrained by state censorship and widespread illiteracy.^[66]

Latvia

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1588	Riga	Nikolaus Mollin

Ukraine

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1574	Lviv	Ivan Fedorov	Apostol (the Acts and Epistles in Slavonic)
1593[33]	Lviv

Wales

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1587	Llandudno	Roger Thackwell	Y Drych Cristianogawl ("The Christian Mirror"). Printed covertly in a cave on the Little Orme.[67]

Estonia

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1632	Tartu	Jacobus Pistorius (Jacob Becker)	PostOrdnung (28.09.1632) was the first document printed in Tartu with date and printer's name. The printing press operated in connection with Tartu University (Academia Gustaviana) that was opened on the same year. The reverse side of the document contains a resolution of Johan Skytte about Academia Gustaviana.[68]

Finland

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1642	Turku	Peder Walde, Swedish	The print shop was set up at The Royal Academy of Turku which was the first university (created in 1640) in what is now Finland.

Georgia

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1709	Tbilisi	Mihail Ishtvanovitch	Established by the decree of Vakhtang VI in Abanotubani, Tbilisi

The first books printed in Georgian were Alphabetum Ibericum sive Georgianum cum Oratione and Dittionario giorgiano e italiano published in Rome in 1629.^[69]

Armenia

Main article: Armenian printing

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1771	Vagharshapat	St. Grigor Lusavorich, Simeon Yerevantsi (Catholicos of Armenia)	The first published book in Etchmiadzin was titled Սաղմոսարան (Psalms).[70] The printing house was St. Grigor Lusavorich.

The first book which had Armenian letters was published in Mainz (Germany) in 1486. The first Armenian book to be published by the printing press was Urbatagirq—Book of Friday prayers—which was published by Hakob Meghapart in Venice in 1512.^[71]

Greenland

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1860	Godthaab

Latin America

Mexico

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1539[72]	Mexico City	Juan Pablos of Brescia[73] at the House of the First Print Shop in the Americas	Established by the archbishop Juan de Zumárraga, using Hans Cromberger from Seville, the first book printed was Breve y Mas Compendiosa Doctrina Christina,[73] written in both Spanish and native Nahuatl.[74] Esteban Martín of Mexico City has been determined to be the first printer in the Western Hemisphere.[75] Between 1539 and 1600 presses produced 300 editions, and in the following century 2,007 editions were printed.[76] In the 16th century, more than 31% of locally produced imprints were in native Indian languages, mostly religious texts and grammars or vocabularies of Amerindian languages. In the 17th century, this rate dropped to 3% of total output.[77]
1640[72]	Puebla

Peru

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1581[72]	Lima	Antonio Ricardo	Presses produced 1,106 titles between 1584 and 1699.[78]

Guatemala

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1660[72]	Guatemala City		The first book is Un tratado sobre el cultivo del añil, which, not coincidentally, was printed in blue ink.[79]

Paraguay

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1700[72]	Jesuit mission of Paraguay		Established with local materials by local Guaraní workers who had converted to Christianity.[72]

Cuba

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1707[72]	Havana

Colombia

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1736[72]	Bogotá

Ecuador

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1759[72]	Quito

Chile

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1776[72]	Santiago		Press functioned only briefly.[72] In 1812 permanently established.
1810	Valparaíso

Argentina

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1780[72]	Buenos Aires

Puerto Rico

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1806

Uruguay

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1807 [80]	Montevideo

Brazil

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1808[81]	Rio de Janeiro

Venezuela

Date	City	Printer	Comment
1808[72]	Caracas

Africa

Date	City	Country	Printer	Comment
1516	Fez	Morocco	Jewish	Refugees who had worked for the printer Rabbi Eliezer Toledano in Lisbon[82]
1557	Cairo	Egypt	Gershom ben Eliezer Soncino	First printing press in the Middle East, known only from two fragments discovered in the Cairo Geniza.[83]
As early as the 16th century		Mozambique	Portuguese
	Luanda	Angola	Portuguese
	Malindi	Kenya	Portuguese
1795	Cape Town	South Africa [84]	Johann Christian Ritter German	Almanach voor't jaar 1796.[85][86] The possibility of printing may be as early as 1784 when Ritter arrived in the Cape but no earlier output has surfaced.[87]: facing p. 157 p. 160  Ritter is also said to have printed Almanacs for 1795 to 1797 suggesting a start to printing of 1794.[88]
1798	Cairo	Egypt	French
c.1825		Madagascar	English	Malagasy translation of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism[89]
1831 [84]	Grahamstown	South Africa		Grahamstown Journal
1833		Mauritius
1841 [84]	Pietermaritzburg	South Africa		Ivangeli e li yincucli, e li baliweyo G'Umatu
1841 [84]	Umlazi	South Africa		Incuadi yokuqala yabafundayo
1856 [84]	Bloemfontein	South Africa		Orange Vrystaad A.B.C. spel en leesboek
1855[90]	Scheppmansdorf (now: Rooibank)	Namibia	Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt	On 29 June 1855, Protestant missionary Kleinschmidt published 300 copies of Luther's catechism in the Nama language which represent the first printed works in that tongue. Political unrest seems to have prevented further printing activities. The press was reported as being functional as late as 1868, but whether printing was resumed is unknown.[90]
1863	Massawa	Eritrea	Lorenzo Biancheri	An Italian Lazarist missionary set up the first printing press in Ethiopia to print missionary texts in Amharic. Biancheri called himself "Printer to His Majesty Emperor Theodros", but there is no evidence he had an imperial appointment. He died in 1864 and his press did not outlive him.[91]
1870s [92]		Malawi
1892	Salisbury	Southern Rhodesia (now: Zimbabwe)		Rhodesia Herald in print, may have started earlier [87]: 169
1901	Harar	Ethiopia		Fifth press in the Ethiopian Empire, but the first in what is today Ethiopia. Established by Franciscans, it printed periodicals in French and Amharic. It was later moved to Dire Dawa.[91]

Asia

South Asia

Date	City	Country	Printer	Comment
1556	Goa	Portuguese India	Jesuits	The press was attached to St Paul's college. See Printing in Goa.
1674-75	Bombay	British India	Bhimjee Parikh[93] / Henry Hills	East India Company supplied press, with only a Latin typeface
1712	Tranquebar	Danish India	Danish-Halle/SPCK Mission
1736	Colombo	Ceylon, Dutch India	Dutch reform Church / Dutch East India Company	Printing in Dutch, Sinhala, and Tamil
1758	Pondicherry	French India	Thomas Arthur, comte de Lally	Captured by the East India Company, and moved to Madras in 1761
1761	Madras	British India	Johann Phillip Fabricius	Printing in Tamil, using the captured Pondicherry press
1772	Madras	British India	Shahamir Shahamirian, Armenian	The first book published here was Այբբենարան (Aybbenaran - Reading Primer) in Armenian.
1777, November	Calcutta	British India	James Augustus Hicky	Publisher of Hicky's Bengal Gazette
1778, January	Calcutta	British India	Robert William Kiernander and John Zachariah Kiernander	SPCK Missionaries
Between 1777 and 1779	Hooghly	British India	Charles Wilkins and Nathaniel Brassey Halhed
1780, November	Calcutta	British India	Barnard Messink and Peter Reed	Publishers of the India Gazette
1792	Bombay	British India
1800	Serampore	Danish India	Baptist Missionary Society	Printing Bibles and books in several Indian languages
1848	Lahore	British India	Syed Muhammad Azeem	Lahore Chronicle Press, located in the old Naulakha palace, and printing in English and Farsi (Persian)

Ottoman Empire

Date	City	Printer	Comment
Dec 13th, 1493	Constantinople	David and Samuel ibn Nahmias, Hebrew	First ever printed book in Ottoman Empire was Arba'ah Turim in Hebrew.[94] Some argue the year and suggest 1503 or 1504.[94]
1519—1523	the Church of Saint George in Sopotnica, Sanjak of Herzegovina, Ottoman Empire (today village in Novo Goražde, Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina). The books were printed in Church Slavonic of the Serbian recension.	Božidar Goraždanin	hieratikon (1519), psalter (1521) and a small euchologion (1523)
1554	Bursa
1567	Constantinople	Apkar Tebir, Armenian	The first book printed here was Փոքր քերականութիւն (Poqr Qerakanutyun - Brief Armenian Grammar) in Armenian
1577	Safed	Eliezer and Abraham ben Isaac Ashkenazi (apparently no relation)	First printing press in Western Asia, publishing in Hebrew. Eliezer, a native of Prague, operated in Lublin and Constantinople before settling in Safed. First printed Lekach Tov, a commentary on the Book of Esther by 18 year old Yom Tov Tzahalon.[95]
1584	St. Anthony's Monastery, Qozhaya, Lebanon		Introduced by Maronite Patriarch Sergius ar-Rezzi; psalter was printed the first time in 1585[96]
1610	St. Anthony's Monastery, Qozhaya, Lebanon		Second printing press set up by Christian Maronites in Lebanon; printed both Syriac and Arabic in Syriac script
1627-28	Istanbul	Nicodemus Metaxas	First printing press of Greek books in Ott.Empire. Closed down by the authorities in 1628[97]
1706	Aleppo	Athanasius Dabbas	First press for printing in the Arabic script in the Ottoman Empire; operated until 1711. Funded by Constantin Brâncoveanu and established with the assistance of Anthim the Iberian.[8]
1729[98]	Constantinople	Ibrahim Muteferrika	First press for printing in the Arabic script established by Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, against opposition from the calligraphers and parts of the Ulama. It operated until 1742, producing altogether seventeen works, all of which were concerned with non-religious, utilitarian matters.[99]
1734	Monastery of St. John of Choueir, Khenchara, Lebanon	ʻAbd Allāh Zākhir
1759	Smyrna (Izmir)	Markos, Armenian
1779[100]	Constantinople	James Mario Matra (Briton)	Abortive attempt to revive printing in the Ottoman lands[100]

According to some sources, Sultan Bayezid II and successors prohibited printing in Arabic script in the Ottoman empire from 1483 on penalty of death, but printing in other scripts was done by Jews as well as the Greek, Armenian, and other Christian communities (1515 Saloniki, 1554 Bursa (Adrianople), 1552 Belgrade, 1658 Smyrna). Arabic-script printing by non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire began with the press of Athanasius Dabbas in Aleppo in 1706.^[8] In 1727, Sultan Achmed III gave his permission for the establishment of the first legal print house for printing secular works by Muslims in Arabic script (Islamic religious publications still remained forbidden),^[99] but printing activities did not really take off until the 19th century.

Southeast Asia

Date	City	Country	Printer	Comment
1590	Manila	Philippines
1668	Batavia	Indonesia
1818	Sumatra Island	Indonesia

East Asia

Date	City	Country	Printer	Comment
1590	Nagasaki	Japan	Alessandro Valignano	The Jesuits in Nagasaki established The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan and printed a number of books in romanised Japanese language.
1833[101]	Macao	China		The first presses were imported by Western priests for their missionary work from Europe and America. The earliest known, an albion press, was set up in the Portuguese colony Macao and later moved to Canton and Ningbo.[101]
1883[102]	Seoul	Korea	Inoue Kakugoro (Japanese)	The first printing press was imported from Japan for publishing Korea's first Korean-language newspaper Hansong Sunbo. After the press was destroyed by conservatives, Inoue returned with a new one from Japan, reviving the paper as a weekly under the name Hansong Chubo. Presses were also established in Seoul in 1885, 1888 and 1891 by Western missionaries.[102] However, the earliest printing press was apparently introduced by the Japanese in the treaty port of Pusan in 1881 to publish Korea's first newspaper, the bilingual Chosen shinpo.[103]

Iran

Date	City	Country	Printer	Comment
1636	New Julfa, Isfahan	Persia	Khachatur Kesaratsi, Armenian	The first book printed here was Սաղմոս ի Դավիթ (Saghmos i Davit - Psalter) in Armenian
1820	Tehran	Persia
1817[104]	Tabriz	Persia	Zain al-Abidin Tabrizi (?)

United States and Canada

Date	City	Country	Printer	Comment
1638	Cambridge, Massachusetts	USA	Stephen Daye, Samuel Green (from 1649)	This printing shop was located in the home of the first president of Harvard College, Henry Dunster. It printed the first Bible in British North America in 1663, in English as well as Algonquian.[105]
1682[106]	Jamestown, Virginia	USA
1685[106]	Philadelphia	USA	William Bradford
1685	St. Mary's City, Maryland[106]	USA		William and Dinah Nuthead started a press in Annapolis in 1686[107]
1693[106]	New York	USA	William Bradford
1731[106]	Charleston, South Carolina	USA
1735	Germantown	USA	Christoph Sauer
1749[106]	New Bern, North Carolina	USA
1752	Halifax	Canada	John Bushell	The Halifax Gazette, Canada's first newspaper was published initially in this year.
1761[106]	Wilmington, Delaware	USA
1762[106]	Savannah, Georgia	USA
1764[106]	New Orleans, Louisiana	Spanish Louisiana (later USA)
1783[106]	St. Augustine, Florida	La Florida (New Spain) (later USA)
1787[106]	Lexington, Kentucky	USA
1791[106]	Rogersville, Tennessee	USA
1828	New Echota, Arkansas	USA	Elias Boudinot (Cherokee)	Boudinot published the Cherokee Phoenix as first newspaper of the tribe.
1833[106]	Monterey, California	Mexico (later USA)
1834[106]	Santa Fe	Mexico (later USA)
1846	San Francisco	USA
1853	Oregon	USA
1858	Vancouver Island	Canada

Australia and Oceania

Date	City	Country	Printer	Comment
1795	?	Australia	George Hughes
1802	Sydney	Australia	George Howe
1818	Hobart, Tasmania	Australia
1818	Tahiti	French Polynesia
1821	Hawaii	Kingdom of Hawaii
1835	Paihia	New Zealand	William Colenso	The first book was a Maori translation of part of the Bible commissioned by the Church Missionary Society: "Ko nga Pukapuka o Paora te Apotoro ki te Hunga o Epeha o Piripai" (The Epistles of St Paul to the Philippians and the Ephesians).
1836	Maui	Kingdom of Hawaii

See also

• Editio princeps
• Incunable