Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
British-American publisher; publisher of Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. is the company known for publishing the Encyclopædia Britannica, the world’s oldest continuously published encyclopaedia. Founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, and historically British, the company has been American-owned since 1901 and is now based in Chicago, Illinois. The company also owns the American dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster.
History
Founding years
The company was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 18th century, during the historical period termed the Scottish Enlightenment. Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell began the first edition in 1768. The pair engaged William Smellie, who compiled most of the articles in the first edition. The second edition was published in 1784. After Macfarquhar's death in 1793, Bell became its sole proprietor and published the third and fourth editions.
Archibald Constable, an Edinburgh publisher, published the fifth and sixth editions.
“Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.” enters the record as british-American publisher; publisher of Encyclopædia Britannica. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Encyclopædia, Britannica and British-American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Encyclopædia, Britannica and British-American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2743906. VIAF identifies the subject as 152011302. The Library of Congress control number is n79127925. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1768, 1784 and 1793.
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This entry incorporates text from “Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.