Guinness World Records celebrates 70 years

The Guinness World Records has been released for the 70th consecutive year, without competition in its field, after having to reinvent itself to adapt to the challenges of the digital revolution. The 2025 edition was released in France on August 28, and in most other countries on September 12.

The book is now printed in about thirty languages. That’s fewer than the world record holder, Powell Janulus, an English-speaking Canadian who, for the 1985 edition, had certified his ability to converse with speakers of 41 languages.

With 80,000 copies, the French version is the third largest print run of the book, behind English and German. “It’s a book that everyone, everywhere, knows and loves,” its global editor-in-chief, Craig Glenday, told AFP.

The tallest man alive? The Turkish Sultan Kösen, 2.51 m. The longest road tunnel in the world? 24.5 km, in Norway. The oldest model? The British Daphne Selfe, hired at 95. And so on for 250 pages.

But like other large volumes, the Guinness World Records has suffered a certain disaffection. Encyclopedias are all but dead, dictionaries are surviving, and legal codes have largely migrated to electronic form. “There has been a decline in book sales. We’re not selling as many as we used to,” acknowledges Craig Glenday.

The book has changed. More and more colors from the end of the 1990s, piles of photos on each page: the austere and methodical catalog is no more. But “the company has also changed by introducing new sources of revenue, with videos. We are one of the biggest brands on TikTok, because the content is infinitely flexible,” according to the editor-in-chief. This account is approaching 27 million subscribers.

They may be few to know it, but it is no coincidence that the Guinness Book of Records is the namesake of a famous Irish beer with a black robe. The book was born from a debate between two hunters on the identity of the fastest game in Europe. No encyclopedia, no zoology treatise had a clear answer. In 1954, the first edition was released, intended for pubs that served Guinness. Free, it was often stolen at the time. Hence its arrival in bookstores.

The original idea, to be an authority in this specialized field of records, is still the core business of the group. It does not hide the commercial side of the business, the sale of expensive services to certify records set by those who want to advertise themselves.

“The big change over the last ten years is our offering to companies: those who want to set records to get attention. In the Middle East, the Guinness World Records mark is a sign of excellence for products,” says Craig Glenday.

This activity has earned the group criticism for its cooperation with authoritarian regimes. But these accusations remain little known to the general public. “The Guinness Book of Records is part of our heritage, because several generations have received it as a gift,” says Anne Le Meur, coordinator of French publishing at Hachette.

Adapting a book that is very much influenced by its British origins and its success in the United States for a French audience is an annual challenge. “It’s a long-term job, with a loyal team of ten translators, each specialized in a field. From March to the beginning of June, we keep up a very sustained pace, receiving ten double-page spreads to translate per week,” the publisher told AFP.