Documented evidence indicates that toilet paper was first used in which country?

Paper was known as a wrapping and padding material as early as the 2nd century BC in China. However, the first documented use of toilet paper in human history dates back to the 6th century AD, also in medieval China.

In 589 AD, the scholar-official Yan Zhitui (531-591 AD) wrote about the use of toilet paper when he wrote, "Paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from the 'Five Classics' or the names of sages, I dare not use for toilet purposes." (The 'Five Classics are Chinese books that form part of the traditional Confucian canon).

During the later Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), an Arab traveller to China in the year 851 AD remarked: " ...they [the Chinese] do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities; but they only wipe themselves with paper".

Centuries later in China, during the 14th century, it was recorded in what is now Zhejiang province alone (eastern coastal province) that ten millions packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets of toilet paper were manufactured annually.

Today, an average tree produces 200 rolls or 100 pounds (45 kg) of toilet paper and about 83 million rolls are produced per day. Global toilet paper production consumes 27,000 trees daily.