Chinese Encyclopedia

Chinese encyclopedias are encyclopedias published in the Chinese language or encyclopedias about China and Chinese related topics. The origin of encyclopedias in China can be traced to the late Han dynasty, circa 220 CE. Chinese has two words for encyclopedia or encyclopedic, common "baike" (百科), literally "hundred subjects" and literary "dadian" (大典), literally "great canon". For example, "baike quanshu" (百科全書) "hundred subjects complete book" or "comprehensive encyclopedia" and "Yongle dadian" (永樂大典 - Yongle Emperor's great canon) "Yongle Encyclopedia". Encyclopedic works were published in China for well over one and a half thousand years before China's first modern encyclopedias were published after China's economic liberalization in the 1980s, during the reform period. Several encyclopedias have been published in China since then, including several specialist and children's encyclopedias.

The history of encyclopedias in China is distinctive and covers almost two thousand years. Traditional Chinese encyclopedias differ from the modern encyclopedia in that they are mainly anthologies of significant literature with some aspects of the dictionary. Compiled by eminent scholars, they have been revised rather than replaced over hundreds of years. In the main, they followed a classified form of arrangement; very often their chief use was to aid candidates for the civil service.

Pictures below show the incomplete copy (damaged) of Chinese Encyclopedia from my collection.

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