46 Delicious Pizza Facts

By Karin Lehnardt, Senior Writer

Published November 19, 2017Updated February 9, 2022

Americans eat approximately 350 slices of pizza per second._[11]
The word "pizza" means "pie" in Italian._[11]
While pizza in some form has been baked since antiquity, the first "official" pizzeria opened in Naples around 1830._[11]
Samuel Morse, an American most famous for inventing the telegraph, noted that pizza was a "nauseating cake" that looked like "a piece of bread that had been taken reeking out of the sewer."_[11]
In America, annual pizza sales exceed $28 billion a year._[1]
Over 3 billion pizzas are sold every year in the United States alone._[1]

More pizza means more saturated fat and more sodium

Pizza is the second-leading source of calories in the diet of American children, second behind grain desserts, such as cookies and other carb-heavy treats._[3]
Over 5 billion pizzas are sold each year worldwide._[19]
Recently, Halloween unseated Super Bowl Sunday as the biggest pizza day of the year._[14]
Thanksgiving is the day Americans eat the least amount of pizza._[14]
October is National Pizza Month._[17]
While pizza was originally invented in Naples, returning American soldiers who fought in Italy during WWII were responsible for spreading its popularity throughout the United States._[17]
Finland's Pizza Berlusconi is topped with smoked reindeer._[2]
In Brazil, pizza toppings include green peas, corn, and hearts of palm._[2]
In Sweden, pizza is often topped with bananas and curry powder._[2]
The average American eats about 46 slices, or 23 pounds, of pizza per year._[1]

You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six.

- Yogi Berra

Popular Australian pizza toppings include kangaroo, emu, and crocodile meat._[2]
In Scotland, favorite pizza toppings include sheep heart, liver, and lungs, which are minced with oatmeal, onion, suet, spices, and stock. It is known to have a rather nutty texture._[2]
Hawaiian pizza was not invented in Hawaii. Rather, it was created in Ontario, Canada, in 1962._[2]
The most popular pizza topping in the United States is pepperoni, followed by mushrooms, sausage, ham, and green peppers._[6]
Mayo Jinga is a Japanese pizza that features corn, potatoes, pancetta, and mayonnaise._[2]
It has been scientifically proven that mozzarella cheese is the best pizza cheese._[15]

Mozzarella was once made using only water buffalo milk

There are over 34 million ways to create a single Domino's pizza._[6]
In the United States alone, Domino's pizza delivery drivers cover over 10 million miles (16 million km)each week._[6]
Domino's delivers the most pizzas in the world, at over a million pizzas per day._[6]
Domino's is consistently among the top 10 companies in online transactions, a group that includes both Amazon and Apple._[6]
The word "pizza" was first recorded in a Latin text from the southern Italian town of Gaeta in 997 AD. It is believed to have derived from a Langobard word similar to the Old High German "bizzo" or "pizzo," which is, in turn, related to English "bite" and "bit."_[13]
Lady Gaga once bought $1000 worth of pizza for fans who were waiting in line for her autograph._[12]
Baked in 2012, the world's largest pizza measured 131 feet in diameter and weighed 51,257 pounds. It used 19,800 pounds of gluten-free flour, 10,000 pounds of tomato sauce, 8,800 pounds of mozzarella cheese, 1, 488 pounds of margarine, 551 pounds of rock salt, 220 pounds of lettuce, and 55 pounds of vinegar._[24]
There is a mathematical theorem named after pizza. Called the "Pizza Theorem," the equation mimics pizza slicing techniques._[20]
The pizza Margherita is named after the Italian Queen Margherita. In celebration of the queen's visit to Naples in 1889, a popular pizzeria made a pizza to match the white, green, and red of the Italian flag._[11]
Americans eat approximately 250 million pounds of pepperoni a year._[1]

Each slice of pepperoni has about 26 calories

The founder of Atari also created the Chuck E. Cheese's pizza franchise as a way to make more money off of his video game consoles._[8]
Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, traveled to Naples in 1835 and noted that the Neapolitan poor ate nothing but pizza in the winter._[22]
Cristian Dumitru of Romania holds the world record for eating the most pizza. He ate over 200 pounds of the Italian pie._[21]
The five most popular pizza days are Super Bowl Sunday, New Year’s Eve, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, New Year’s Day, and Halloween._[21]
Pizza Hut first offered online ordering in 1994._[18]
Since the early 1960s, the price of pizza has uncannily matched the price of a New York subway ride. Known as the "Pizza Principle" or the "Pizza-Subway Connection," this "economic law" is generally accurate._[23]
Death row inmate Philip Workman requested that his final meal, vegetarian pizzas, be delivered to any homeless person near the maximum security institution. When prison officials refused, a woman and her friends paid over $1,200 to fulfill his request._[7]
A restaurant in Alaska, Airport Pizza, delivers pizza by airplane._[16]
A hacker group known as UGNAZI once crashed Papa John's website because the company failed to deliver a pizza on time._[10]

Vive la pizza

In France, a fried egg is either baked directly on top of a pizza or baked in a separate pan and then placed on top._[2]
Once, a man claiming to be a part of Bob Dylan's backstage crew walked into an Antonio's Pizzeria in Amherst, Massachusetts, and ordered 148 pizzas, for a total of nearly $4,000. In what turned out to be a prank, the man never returned to pay or pick up the pizzas._[4]
A Pizza Hut delivery man was fired after he shot and killed a man who approached him with a gun._[5]
Pizza Hut briefly considered engraving the company's logo on the moon with lasers. They abandoned the idea when astronomers told them that the image would need to be the size of Texas to be seen from Earth._[3]
In Cambodia, some pizzerias offer "happy pizzas"—pizzas that are topped with high-quality marijuana._[9]