Global honey production reached roughly 1.89 million tonnes in 2023, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization — and one country alone, China, accounts for close to a quarter of it, producing more than three times as much honey as second-place India. Past the top two, though, exact country rankings genuinely do shift depending on which year’s FAOSTAT data and which secondary source you’re reading, and this article is upfront about that rather than presenting a single falsely tidy top-10 list as more precise than the underlying data actually is.
Key Takeaways
- Global honey production totaled approximately 1,894,000 tonnes in 2023, per the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) — the most recent full-year figure in FAO’s own published World Bee Day 2025 analysis.
- China is, by a very wide and consistently reported margin, the world’s largest honey producer — figures across FAO-sourced reports put its output in the range of roughly 450,000-460,000 tonnes, close to a quarter of total world production.
- India is consistently the second-largest producer, at roughly a third of China’s output — a large but genuinely distant second place, not a close race.
- Africa accounts for about 12% of global honey production (roughly 223,000 tonnes) and had the fastest-growing regional output as of FAO’s 2025 analysis, with Ethiopia as the continent’s largest producer and one of the top 10 producing countries worldwide.
- Beyond the top two, country-level rankings for spots 3 through 10 (Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, the United States, Argentina, Russia, Mexico, Ukraine, and Brazil all appear in this range across various reports) shift somewhat by year and by which specific dataset revision a given source cites — a real limitation worth naming rather than glossing over with false precision.
Table of Contents
- How Much Honey the World Actually Produces
- China’s Outsized Lead
- The Next Tier: Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, and Beyond
- Why Exact Rankings Vary Between Sources
- Where the United States Actually Ranks
- Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Honey the World Actually Produces
According to the FAO’s own published analysis for World Bee Day 2025 — which draws on FAOSTAT, the organization’s official statistical database — global honey production reached approximately 1,894,000 tonnes in 2023. That’s the total across every reporting country, from massive commercial operations in China to smallholder beekeepers across sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, and it’s the single most authoritative aggregate figure available since it comes directly from the UN body that compiles national agricultural statistics rather than from a secondary aggregator.
China’s Outsized Lead
China’s position at the top of global honey production isn’t close. Multiple FAO-sourced reports place its annual output in the range of roughly 450,000 to 460,000 tonnes — meaning China alone accounts for something close to a quarter of all the honey produced on Earth in a given year. India holds a clear, consistent second place, but at roughly a third of China’s volume, which makes this a genuine outlier at the top rather than a tightly bunched leaderboard. China is also a major honey exporter, a detail directly relevant to international honey-fraud concerns already covered on this site — the sheer scale of Chinese production is part of why anti-dumping trade disputes and origin-laundering schemes have specifically centered on Chinese-origin honey rather than any other country’s.
The Next Tier: Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, and Beyond
Past China and India, a consistent group of countries competes for the remaining top-10 spots: Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, Argentina, Russia, Mexico, Ukraine, Brazil, and the United States all appear in various FAO-sourced top-10 lists. Ethiopia deserves particular note — FAO’s own 2025 World Bee Day analysis specifically identifies it as Africa’s largest honey producer and places it among the top 10 producing countries globally, consistent with its status as a country with a genuinely ancient, continuous beekeeping tradition (Ethiopia’s tej — honey wine — culture and its beekeeping history are covered in more depth elsewhere on this site).
Africa as a whole is worth flagging separately from any single country’s rank: FAO’s 2025 analysis found the continent had the highest growth rate of any world region in honey production, even though it currently accounts for only about 12% of global output (roughly 223,000 tonnes) — a real signal of where global production capacity may shift over the coming years, distinct from where the largest current volumes sit today.
Why Exact Rankings Vary Between Sources
It’s worth being direct about a limitation here rather than papering over it: publicly available secondary sources reporting “top honey producing countries” frequently cite slightly different figures for the same country, even when all of them claim to be using FAO or FAOSTAT data. Turkey’s annual output, for instance, appears variously in the range of roughly 95,000 to 118,000 tonnes across different reports pulling from different report years or FAOSTAT revisions. That’s not necessarily any single source being wrong — FAOSTAT figures get revised as countries submit updated national statistics, and different articles are often built on different snapshot years of the same underlying dataset.
The practical upshot: China’s dominant first place and India’s clear second place are robust findings that hold up across essentially every source and year. Precise rank order and tonnage for positions 3 through 10 should be treated as approximate and time-sensitive rather than as a single fixed, permanent list — which is a more honest way to present this kind of data than picking one secondary source’s table and presenting it as more authoritative than it actually is.
Where the United States Actually Ranks
The United States, despite its large agricultural sector and prominent commercial beekeeping and pollination-services industry, is not a top-tier honey producer by global volume — FAO-sourced figures place recent U.S. annual production at roughly 61,000 tonnes, generally landing somewhere around 8th to 10th place worldwide depending on the year and which other countries’ figures are current in that report. That’s a genuinely useful thing to know for anyone assuming America’s large beekeeping industry translates into a leading position on raw honey tonnage: the U.S. beekeeping industry’s economic value is driven at least as much by commercial pollination services (almonds, in particular) as by honey volume itself, which is a different economic story than the one China and India’s raw production numbers tell.
Frequently Asked Questions
What country produces the most honey in the world?
China, by a wide margin. FAO-sourced figures put its annual output at roughly 450,000-460,000 tonnes, close to a quarter of total world production and more than three times India’s second-place output.
How much honey does the world produce each year?
Approximately 1,894,000 tonnes in 2023, according to the FAO’s own published World Bee Day 2025 analysis, which draws on the FAOSTAT database.
Where does Ethiopia rank in global honey production?
Ethiopia is Africa’s largest honey producer and ranks among the top 10 countries globally, according to FAO’s own 2025 analysis, reflecting the country’s long, continuous beekeeping tradition.
Why do different sources list different honey production rankings?
Most secondary sources cite FAO or FAOSTAT data, but FAOSTAT figures are periodically revised as countries update their national statistics, and different articles often draw on different report years of the same dataset — which produces genuinely different numbers for the same country without any source necessarily being wrong.
Where does the United States rank in honey production?
Roughly 8th to 10th globally by volume, with FAO-sourced figures placing recent U.S. annual output at around 61,000 tonnes — well behind the top producers despite the size and prominence of the U.S. commercial beekeeping industry.