Guinness World Records 2026

The 2026 Guinness World Record Book is a celebration of the cheeriest colour - yellow. The cover is all yellow and the endpapers feature all shades of yellow in record-breaking achievements: human, non-human, living and non-living. In fact, the largest bath toy is a yellow rubber duck that stands at 32m tall and 40m long made by a Dutch artist. This rubber duck holds pride of place on the first page of this 2026 edition with page 4 & 5 highlighting other favourite yellow record breakers including the largest gold sculpture, the Golden Buddha made from 5.5tonnes of solid gold and the most mustard eaten from a tube in 30 seconds recorded by Andre Ortloff (DEU) who drank 416g.

In this year’s edition are 2,987 records from 40,842 applications. On the Editor’s letter page is the amazing achievement of Australian swimmer Alexa Leary who broke her own 100m freestyle swim (S9 Female) winning her race in a time of 59.22 at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games. Alexa’s story is incredible and she deserves this wonderful recognition. Other icons in this edition include Dolly Parton, Usain Bolt and the Hempleman-Adams family who have adventured all over the world in exploits such as air ballooning, mountaineering and polar exploration.

The contents page lists nine different sections comprising of Arts & Crafts, Kids Zone, Screen Time, Human Beings, Science & Engineering, Fantastic Facts, Society, Sports and Extreme Nature. Under each section are numerous headings with the Extreme Nature section broken up into the following: largest, smallest, fastest, oldest, deadliest, toughest, most and round up. The visual images of all manner of animals in this section are quite stunning.

Every year the Guinness World Record book continues to provide readers with a treasure trove of records to learn about and ponder over.

Themes: Worldwide Record-breaking Achievements.

Kathryn Beilby