World Book Capital Cities 2015 & 2016

The UNESCO World Book Capital City programme centres on cities in Asia and Europe for 2015 and 2016. Incheon, Korea is World Book Capital City 2015 and in 2016 the honour moves to Wroclaw in Poland.

UNESCO initiated the concept of World Book Capital City with the first Capital of Madrid in 2001. Following this successful experience, the General Conference adopted a resolution establishing the yearly nomination of the Book Capital City.

The 2015 official opening ceremony takes place in the city of Incheon on April 23; the four-day UNESCO World Education Forum starts on May 19, and the Children’s Education Book Fair is scheduled for November.

Read more about Incheon's programme plans

The city of Wroclaw (Poland) was named World Book Capital for 2016 by an international committee of experts at UNESCO.

The selection committee singled out Wroclaw “in light of the strong assets of its programme in terms of quality and variety” and in particular, “for its special focus on grass-root community involvement, as well as promotion of publishing, bookselling industries and libraries at regional and international levels”.

Keep up to date with Wroclaw's plans for 2016 at bookinstitute.pl

Image: Wroclaw © Grzegorz Grycner