Encyclopedia of China
first comprehensive encyclopedia of the People's Republic of China (1993)
The Encyclopedia of China (simplified Chinese: 中国大百科全书; traditional Chinese: 中國大百科全書; pinyin: Zhōngguó Dà Bǎikēquánshū; lit. 'Great Encyclopedia of China') is the first large-entry modern encyclopedia in the Chinese language. The compilation began in 1978. Published by the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, the encyclopedia was issued one volume at a time, beginning in 1980 with a volume on astronomy; the final volume was completed in 1993. It comprised 74 volumes, with more than 80,000 entries. Arranged by subject, which numbered 66 (some subjects occupy more than one volume), within each subject, entries were arranged by pinyin as many modern Chinese dictionaries have been. A Uyghur language edition was also published in 2015.
A CD-ROM version and a subscription-based online version are also available. A second and more concise edition of the work was published in 2009.
The third online edition was released and published in the end of 2018, which is free to use.
The public source identifies “Encyclopedia of China” as first comprehensive encyclopedia of the People's Republic of China (1993). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Encyclopedia, China and first.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 5, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q197836. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1978, 1980, 1993 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “Encyclopedia of China” 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.