How Many Words Are There in the Harry Potter Book Series?
So, how many total words are there in the Harry Potter series? The answer may surprise you. The total number of words for the Harry Potter series is over 1 million words. That’s correct. If you want your kids to read over one million words in a short period of time, one of your best chances is to get them interested in the Harry Potter book series.
In order to reach the 1 million plus word count, it’s necessary to read all seven books which are part of the series. These include the following:
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stones
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Not all the books are the same when it comes to the number of words in them. The book with the least total number of words is Sorcerer’s Stones, while the book with the most words is Order of the Phoenix. Only 2 of the 7 Harry Potter books came in at under 100,000 words (Sorcerer’s Stones and Chamber of Secrets) which happened to be the first two books in the series. Only one book (Order of the Phoenix) topped 200,000 words, but there were two books that came close with more than 190,000 words (Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows). When added all together, the Harry Potter books contain 1,084,170 words. Below you’ll find the total word count numbers for each book in the Harry Potter series:
How many words are in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stones? There are 76,944 words.
How many words are in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? There are 85,141 words.
How many words are in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban? There are 107,253 words.
How many words are in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? There are 190,637 words.
How many words are in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? There are 257,045 words.
How many words are in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? There are 168,923 words.
How many words are in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? There are 198,227 words.
While knowing the total number of words in the Harry Potter series isn’t going to convince anyone to read all the books, knowing the total word count is an excellent way to encourage kids to read more. Reading over 1 million words is a great accomplishment which can be celebrated in addition to the fun and adventure that comes with reading the books. Now you know you can congratulate anyone who has read all the Harry Potter books of reading more than a million words.
So if I read the entire series like I did, I read over 1 million words?!?
Yes! 🙂
Well, that sure is a lot of words to read and so many people read all the books. That sounds like more words than I would’ve ever thought. I’m glad that I can say that I’ve read over 1 million words from these books.
HOLY MOTHER OF CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP!!!!!!!!!!!! I READ 1,000,000 WORDS????????????????
Yep….
You must have a lot of free time to count all the words in the Harry Potter books! I love Harry Potter, but I would never take the time to count all of the words.
I don’t think that he sat down and counted each word in each of the Harry Potter books. He just gathered the information.
Obviously noone counts the words manually anymore. Most of the ebook readers now themselves give how many words are in the given ebook.
I live Harry Potter. I wish there were even more books to read. 2 million words or 5 million words. I would even read 10 million words!
Try going onto A03 it’s a fanfiction website where you can read thousands of books about basically anything including harry potter!
um u thicko i think u mean 200,000,000
As a teacher, this series is so great to get students interested in reading! They get hooked on the fist book and you know the are going to read over1 million words because they won’t stop at the first book. It’s such a magical series!
I think all students should read this. Think about how much more fun school would be if Harry Potter was assigned as homework!
I’m reading a gay fanfiction that is 500,00 words… that’s twice what the order of the Phoenix is and I’m concerned
LMAOOOOOOOOOOO
You’re reading Harry Potter gay fanfiction?
I’ve read fanfictions longer than every one of there books.
yeah, some are over 1 million words long… for ONE story.
I loved the Harry Potter series. I wish the books would never end it was so much fun reading. Realizing that the entire series is over 1 million words read is great trivia to have. I bet most kids ha no idea they are reading that many words. It’s great for all those who believe that reading is important!
yup. harry potter is what got me interested in reading. you just read nonstop, and when you realized, it’s 3am and you’ve finished all 7 books lol
Thank you so much for posting this! What is great is that when you have a good book in your hands it doesn’t matter what the word count is, but it does feel cool to be able to say, “I’ve read over a million words!”
I LOVE Harry Potter!!! I think it’s so great that kids read over 1 million words when they read the Harry Potter book series. What a wonderful way to lean to love reading!!! Everyone should know the joy of this world and the hidden magic in it I hope everyone reads this series
It’s great to know the length of such good books – especially for budding writers. It sets a sort of bench mark for how short a book can be and still be amazing
I wish the books were even longer. Every time I picked up a Harry Potter book, I’m always disappointed when the book and its. I wish he would go on and on and on and on and on. I think it’s interesting that if you read the entire series you read over 1 million words, but I think most of us who are Harry Potter fans would read much more than this if given the chance. I just love getting lost in the Harry Potter world when I’m reading those books. This is the order of my favorite books
Sorcerer’s Stones.
Order of the Phoenix
Prisoner of Azkaban.
Deathly Hallows
Goblet of Fire
Half-Blood Prince
Chamber of Secrets
To me, the fourth book is the most interesting, because I’m obsessed with tournament related plot (influences of too much shounen manga).
Death Hallows is somehow the least interesting. Not sure why. I guess it’s probably because the plot going dark and no more fun time like in the previous books.
I loved reading Harry Potter is well. I think these were the first books that really got me excited about reading and I can never thank Harry Potter enough for helping me to love his world and reading. This is the order of my favorite books.
1. Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Sorcerer’s Stones
3. Goblet of Fire
4. Order of the Phoenix
5. Half-Blood Prince
6. Chamber of Secrets
7. Deathly Hallows
It was difficult to put them in order because I love them all so much, and if you ask me tomorrow I may put them in a completely different order, but that’s what I think right now.
Very true
My fav is Prisoner of Azkaban. It’s honestly the best when you read it the first time though, when you reread it it’s not as exciting :
Harry Potter is one of my favourite books and ive only started the second book.
I recently started reading Harry Potter too. I love the first two books and I’m so excited about reading all the rest. I hope that you love the books is much as I am loving them. I’m happy to see that there are still some people who are just learning about the magic in these books just like I am!
For me I am just reading the order of the Phoenix so I am excited!!!!!
I finished Half-Blood Prince a while ago, kinda scared to start the 7th one
I think Harry Potter should be required reading for everyone in grade school. If this were the case, a lot more people would like to read. Why don’t schools assign reading that kids would actually like rather than boring stuff that we have no interest in reading? Everyone LOVES Harry Potter and even if there are over 1 million words in the book, kids will still read it.
Not all. I know some people (including myself) who don’t enjoy the books as much, but it would be nice if teachers actually assigned the series for homework. My teacher might because she’s obsessed with Harry Potter and it would get a lot of people to love reading.
Does anyone have book recommendations that are similar to Harry Potter that are also worth reading? I loved the HP series, and have actually read it three times now! And I still want more. if you know of other books similar that I would like, please tell them to me.
If you want amazing characters and a fictional plot ready Percy Jackson and then read Heroes of Olympus. You won’t regret it.
yes i am reading a book called wizard for hire it is rally cool.p.s it is not better than harry potter nothing is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yessss-
Hunger Games
Divergent
The Maze Runner
These are all AMAZING 😉
But- Harry Potter still beats them. Hunger Games is SUPER good tho!!!
-That Hufflepuff
I’m writing one XD
I think it’s great that the Harry Potter books in combination are over 1 million words. I think that if you asked most kids if they would read 1 million words they would think you were crazy, but if you just hand them the Harry Potter books they would read through them all over a summer. That’s just crazy! Harry Potter is so good that kids will read 1 million words over a summer. That just goes to show how great these books are!
I personally think that the harry Potter books are overrated. Sure, they are decent, but not nearly as good as everyone seems to make them out to be. Kudos if it helps to get kids to read, but there are far better books out there and I wish that kids didn’t focus so intently on just this series.
Like what? It’s easy to diss on Harry Potter, but it’s useless unless you provide examples to back up your assertion. Tell us all these books that ate better than Harry Potter!
People have their own opinions… You might not like some other books other people list off that they think are better than HP, but others might. So that argument’s useless.
And also:
A Court of Thorns and Roses
A Court of Mist and Fury
Throne of Glass (series)
Scorpio Races
Anna Dressed in Blood
Girl of Nightmares
Tricks (and Traffick, the 2nd book)
Triangles (and Tilt, the 2nd book)
What If? (by Randall Munroe)
What is that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????????//
I can’t believe anybody would ever say that. You thought Harry Potter books were average? You must not have been reading the same books that I was reading.
Is it really necessary to bash on people who don’t like the series as much? I mean, you have your opinions, we have ours.
Right!? You have your own opinion so stop being like this. People don’t need to be hating on other people for A BOOK! I mean come on guys! We could do better.
honestly i know a lot of others are gonna come at me for this, but i agree with you. ofcourse, its totally my opinion, and i dont think either of us intended to “diss” the books, but i personally like some of the books you mentioned so much more.
I love Harry Potter more than anything and I don’t know if I would ever read if not for these books. They inspired my love of reading. How many book series can claim that?
Do you know how many words are in the new book Harry Potter and the cursed Child??
I don’t know the word count off hand, the page count is 320 pages
This is interesting to know just for all the Harry Potter fans out there who, like me, read them all. Must say it doesn’t feel like I read that number of words because the books are so entertaining. I guess that’s a sign of a really great book — you read 1 million words and it doesn’t seem like there were enough. You want even more.
The thing that everyone misses is that it’s not the number of words written, but the words that are written. It’s an interesting book and series and that is why people read them. It has nothing to do with the actual number of words written.
This may be true, but knowing that those who read Harry Potter are reading over 1 million words is pretty cool to know. It may not be the main point, but it’s an interesting point.
Correct
1 million words is a lot more than I would have estimated are in the Harry Potter book series. It’s a great number to encourage kids to read, but I’m also impressed with any author who can write over 1 million words that people actually want to read. That’s a pretty impressive feat for any writer.
I just finished the Harry Potter series and I loved it. I think I may be the biggest Harry Potter fan around now. They are such wonderful books and I can understand why everybody loves them so much. The fact that I read over 1 million words is just a bonus. I don’t know what I’m going to do now that I finished all the books. I love them, but I’m sad that I don’t have any more to read.
There is one thing that I think that everyone should know about Harry Potter that is the BEST book in the universe!!!!!!!!!!!! Go Harry Potter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In order from least to most (since that was the information I needed) and I thought somebody else might need it too:
7. The Sorcerer’s Stones has 76,944 words.
6. The Chamber of Secrets has 85,141 words.
5. The Prisoner of Azkaban has 107,253 words.
4. The Half-Blood Prince has 168,923 words.
3. The Goblet of Fire has 190,637 words.
2. The Deathly Hallows has 198,227 words.
1. The Order of the Phoenix has 257,045 words.
Thank you. I was looking for the number of words in the Harry Potter books in descending order, but this works fine by just flipping it upside down.
Reading Harry Potter Books are far more interesting, suprising, expectations overflowing and a lot os mysteries compared to watching Harry Potter’s Movies
Yes that is very much true.
But, the movies also have a lure to them, so it’s hard to get someone to read all of them, like ‘Oh look, a large 3-headed dog, amazing animation and graphics’ *throws book away and walks over to the couch*
Thx
There are way too many words
Personally, I think there are exactly the right number of words in the Harry Potter books. They are perfection!
I don’t think the number of words matter. What matters is if the books speak to you. If you read them and leave feeling better than when you began the book, then they are a success. The number doesn’t matter compared to that.
One million of the best words ever written! I love Harry Potter and the series.
There are way too many words in this for me. There is no way I would ever read more than a million words. What a waste of time!
You shouldn’t base what you read on the number of words in that reading. You should base it on whether or not the reading is good or not. If something is good, you’ll read not worrying about the number of words. You;ll simply want to read more. That’s what happened with me and Harry Potter. Don’t stop before you even start!
I’m actually a bit surprised. I would have thought there would have been MORE words in all those books. It’s good to know. I think kids will feel accomplished when told they read a million words.
Well I think that there should have been 700000 words or something like that because of all the magical ties of the number seven. I’m saying this because I was on Pottermore this morning and I was reading that segment. If anyone does find out that the amount of words in the series has something to do with the number seven PLEASE tell me!!!
the total number of words in the series (1,084,170) has seven digits
Meanwhile Brandon Sanderson writes a 500k word book in 2 years. That guy is literally a machine.
This surprises me because I’ve read Harry Potter fandiction with more words then all the books combined.
is it bad that I’m just on this site to see how my word count for my work in progress compares to the harry potter books
I am too…
same!!!
Me too
Same
I just figured out that I read an order of the phoenix long fanfic :0 in 3 days but the order of the phoenix took 2 months
OotP took me 3 days personally but I’ve cracked a 200k fanfic in hours before
literally read a 700,000 word fanfic and I was comparing it to the harry potter series
I make on this site for the exact same reason, lmao. Turns out I read the equivalent of the entire Harry patter series in just one week-
I bet most of us are here for that reason.
me too
i read this series in about 5 months and i am shocked that it was that many words!
I can’t believe that I’ve read that many words in 9 weeks. I don’t regret it though. I just finished and I’m starting it again until I get the cursed child. I’m a huge fan and now hooked for life! Recently my whole life has been Harry Potter, all I got to say is Thank you JK Rowling!!
Harry Potter was one of the more good book series I just think that there are a lot of words and i’m not that good at reading…
Harry Potter is the best series in the world, in my opinion.
I’m honestly a little surprised that the Half-Blood Prince has fewer words than Goblet of Fire and that Deathly Hollows has less than the Order of the Phoenix.
I’m surprised that Goblet of Fire doesn’t have the most words. It’s the fattest book on my shelf
No Harry Potter and the Cursed child??!!!
I even want to know about that
Fun Fact- it’s longer than the bible
Percy Jackson is a really good series too.
Is it me, or when u think a 50k work book is massive, u think the Harry Potter books are so fucking chunky
My friends and I are writing a fantasy book collab that’s similar to Harry Potter. So far we’ve got 16,631 words and we’ve just gotten to the climax. My friends are obsessing over the word and page count and I don’t think this is really helping XD But it’s crazy how many words are in this!
Also, it doesn’t really matter how long the books are, as long as they’re good books.
I can’t believe I read 1084170 words!
is it kinda weird that i have read light fan fiction with more words than all the books combined?
I’m 11 and have read the entire series in 5 days (during the summer).
Now while I love the Harry Potter series they are in no way the best books ever written, none of the books I would say would even make the top 100. As a fantasy reader my self I would put wheel of time, asoiaf, Malazan, the first law and many others way above it. They are amazing novels to introduce people to reading and help them find what they want in a book.