Korea printed a book with movable metal type 78 years before Gutenberg
The world's oldest surviving book made with movable metal type was printed in Korea in 1377 — decades before Europe's printing revolution.
In 1377, monks at the Heungdeok-sa temple in Cheongju, Korea finished printing a Buddhist text known as the Jikji. They used cast, reusable metal characters — making it the oldest surviving book in the world produced with movable metal type.
That puts it 78 years ahead of the Gutenberg Bible, the work usually credited with launching printing. While Johannes Gutenberg’s press would reshape Europe, Korean printers had already solved the core problem of casting and arranging metal type.
The Jikji is “the oldest existing book of movable metal print in the world.”
The Jikji was compiled by the monk Baegun and printed in two volumes; only the second survives, held today at the National Library of France in Paris. In 2001, UNESCO inscribed it on its Memory of the World Register, and a UNESCO prize now bears its name.
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