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. Western printing technology was adopted in all world regions by the end of the 19th century, displacing the manuscript and block printing.
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".
Spread of the Gutenberg press
Germany
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. 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" and during the 1550s there were "three hundred or more" printers and booksellers in Geneva alone. The output was in the order of twenty million volumes and rose in the sixteenth century tenfold to between 150 and 200 million copies. Germany and Italy were considered the two main centres of printing in terms of quantity and quality.Rest of the world
The near-simultaneous discovery of sea routes to the West and East 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, and soon after Jesuits started operating the first printing press in Asia.For a long time, however, movable type printing remained mainly the business of Europeans working from within the confines of their colonies. 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, while some movable Arabic type printing was done by Pope Julius II for distribution among Middle Eastern Christians, 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 and surviving texts from circa 1577 Safed have been discovered. Disquiet about the publication of religious texts in this way may have dampened down their production.
In India, reports are that Jesuits "presented a polyglot Bible to the Emperor Akbar in 1580 but did not succeed in arousing much curiosity." 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.
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, Hawaii 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, was already in the process of being displaced by industrial machines like the steam powered press and the rotary press, which radically departed from Gutenberg's design, but were still of the same development line.
Dates by location
The following represents a selection:Germany, Austria and German printers in Central Europe
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
| 1452–53 | Mainz | Johannes Gutenberg, Peter Schöffer, Johann Fust | Gutenberg Bible |
| ~1457 | Bamberg | Albrecht Pfister, Johann Sensenschmid | Pfister: first woodcut book illustration c. 1461 |
| 1460 | Strassburg | Johannes MentelinJohann Grüninger | In 1605, Johann Carolus publishes the German Relation aller Fuernemmen und gedenckwuerdigen Historien, recognized by the World Association of Newspapers as the first newspaper. |
| ~1465 | Cologne | Ulrich Zell, , Gymnici, , Quentell | |
| 1468 | Augsburg | Günther Zainer | |
| Not later than 1469 | Nuremberg | Johann Sensenschmidt, Johannes Regiomontanus, Anton Koberger | |
| ~1471 | Speyer | ||
| ~1472 | Lauingen | ||
| 1473 | Esslingen am Neckar | ||
| 1473 | Merseburg | ||
| 1473 | Ulm | ||
| ~1473–74 | Erfurt | ||
| ~1474 | Lübeck | 1488, Missale Aboense and other versions, first books for the Scandinavian and Finnish markets, by Bartholomeus Ghotan | |
| 1475 | Breslau | Kasper Elyan of Glogau | Kasper's print shop remained operational until 1483 with an overall output of 11 titles. |
| 1475 | Trento | ||
| ~1475 | Blaubeuren | ||
| ~1475 | Rostock | ||
| 1476 | Reutlingen | ||
| ~1478–79 | Memmingen | ||
| 1479 | Würzburg | Georg Reyser | |
| 1479 | Magdeburg | ||
| 1480 | Passau | ||
| 1480 | Leipzig | , Andreas Friesner | |
| ~1480 | Eichstätt | ||
| 1482 | Vienna | Johann Winterburger | |
| 1482 | Munich | Johann Schauer | |
| ~1482 | Heidelberg | ||
| 1484 | Ingolstadt | ||
| 1485 | Münster | ||
| ~1485 | Regensburg | ||
| 1486 | Schleswig | Stephan Arndes | |
| ~1486 | Stuttgart | ||
| ~1488 | Hamburg | ||
| 1489 | Hagenau | ||
| 1491 | Freiburg | ||
| 1492 | Marienburg | Jakob Karweyse | Only two editions printed |
Rest of Europe
Italy
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
| 1465 | Subiaco | Arnold Pannartz, Konrad Sweynheym | |
| 1467 | Rome | Ulrich Hahn, Arnold Pannartz, Konrad Sweynheym | |
| 1469 | 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. In 1501, Ottaviano Petrucci produced the first book of sheet music printed from movable type. |
| 1470 | Milan | Filippo de Lavagna, Antonio Zaroto, shortly afterwards Waldarfer von Regensburg | |
| 1470 | Naples | ||
| 1471 | Florence | Demetrius Damilas | Earliest printing in Greek |
| 1471 | Genoa | ||
| 1471 | Ferrara | ||
| 1471 | Bologna | Probably in 1477, claimed to have the first engraved illustrations, although the 1476 Boccaccio edition by Colard Mansion in Bruges already had copper engravings | |
| 1471 | Padua | ||
| 1471 | Treviso | ||
| 1472 | Parma | ||
| 1473 | Pavia | ||
| 1473 | Brescia | ||
| ~1473–74 | Modena | ||
| 1484 | 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 were north of Rome. 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, with the concentration of printers in Venice being particularly high.
Switzerland
France
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
| 1470 | Paris | Ulrich Gering, Martin Crantz, Michael Friburger | |
| 1473 | Lyon | Guillaume Le Roy, Buyer | |
| ~1475 | Toulouse | ||
| 1476–77 | Angers | ||
| ~1477–78 | Vienne | ||
| 1478–79 | Chablis | ||
| 1479 | Poitiers | ||
| 1480 | Caen | ||
| 1480–82 | Rouen | ||
| 1483 | Troyes | ||
| 1484–85 | Rennes | ||
| 1486 | Abbeville | ||
| ~1486–88 | Besançon | ||
| 1490–91 | Orléans | ||
| 1491 | Dijon | ||
| 1491 | Angoulême | ||
| 1493 | Nantes | ||
| 1493–94 | Tours | ||
| 1495–96 | Limoges | ||
| 1497 | Avignon | ||
| 1500 | Perpignan |
Apart from the cities above, a small number of lesser towns also set up printing presses.
Spain
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
| 1471-1472 | Segovia | Johannes Parix | |
| ~1472-74 | Seville | ||
| ~1472-1473 | Barcelona | Heinrich Botel, Georgius vom Holtz, Johannes Planck | |
| ~1472–73 | Valencia | Lambert Palmart, Jakob Vinzlant | |
| 1475 | Zaragoza | Matthias Flander, Paul Hurus | |
| ~1480 | Salamanca | ||
| 1485 | Burgos | ||
| 1486 | Toledo | ||
| 1496 | Granada | Meinrad Ungut, Hans Pegnitzer | |
| 1499 | Montserrat | Oldest publishing house in the world still running | |
| 1500 | Madrid |
Belgium
Netherlands
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
| 1473 | Utrecht | ||
| 1477 | Gouda | Gerard Leeu | |
| 1477 | Deventer | Richard Paffroad | |
| 1477 | Zwolle | ||
| 1477 | Delft | Jacob Jacobzoon | |
| 1483 | Haarlem | Jacob Bellaert |
In 1481, printing was already being done in 21 towns and cities.
Hungary
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.Poland
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
| 1473 | Cracow | Kasper Straube | The oldest printed work in Poland is the Latin Calendarium cracoviense, a single-sheet astronomical almanac for the year 1474. Although Straube continued to published in Cracow until 1477, printing became permanently established in Cracow, and Poland, only after 1503. In 1491, the first book in Cyrillic script was published by Schweipolt Fiol from Franconia. In 1513, Florian Ungler printed Hortulus Animae, the first book in the Polish language. |
| 1499 | Danzig | Franz Rhode | 1538: Wisby'sches Waterrecht, 1540: Narratio Prima |
| 1580 | Warsaw | ||
| 1593 | Lwów | Matthias Bernhart |
In the 15th and 16th centuries printing presses were also established in Poznań, Lwów, Brześć Litewski and Vilnius.
Bohemia
England
Denmark
Sweden
Portugal
Croatia
Serbia and Montenegro
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.Scotland
Romania
Greece
Lithuania and Belarus
Iceland
Norway
Ireland
Russia
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, but remained constrained by state censorship and widespread illiteracy.Latvia
Ukraine
Estonia
Finland
Georgia
The first books printed in Georgian were Alphabetum Ibericum sive Georgianum cum Oratione and Dittionario giorgiano e italiano published in Rome in 1629.Armenia
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
| 1771 | Vagharshapat | St. Grigor Lusavorich, Simeon Yerevantsi | The first published book in Etchmiadzin was titled Սաղմոսարան. The printing house was St. Grigor Lusavorich. |
The first book which had Armenian letters was published in Mainz 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.
Greenland
Latin America
Mexico
Peru
Guatemala
Paraguay
Cuba
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
| 1707 | Havana |