Great Wall Encyclopedia: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning

Author: China Encyclopedia Press
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1998-10-01
Features: The China Encyclopedia is a large-scale, comprehensive encyclopedia in China. China has a long tradition of compiling reference books. Over two thousand years, more than four hundred types of reference books have been published. These books are treasures of Chinese cultural heritage, collecting, organizing, and preserving important materials from the scientific and cultural classics of Chinese history. Some earlier reference books have been lost, but many have been passed down or partially preserved to this day, valued by scholars in China and around the world. Various reference books differ in structure, with some approaching the type of encyclopedia but not meeting the modern definition of one. In the mid-18th century, while China was compiling the massive Siku Quanshu, encyclopedias of modern type were published successively in France, Germany, England, Italy, and other Western countries. Later, the United States, Russia, Japan, and other countries also followed suit. Modern encyclopedias concisely summarize past human knowledge and history while emphasizing the latest achievements in contemporary science and culture. Over the past two centuries, the compilation of encyclopedias has accumulated rich experience in knowledge classification, editing methods, illustration, and indexing systems, making them increasingly complete and scientific. Today, encyclopedias play a vital role in cultural activities, and various types of encyclopedias have become almost as essential as dictionaries in daily life. The Chinese intellectual community, with a long tradition of compiling reference books, has long set the goal of editing modern encyclopedias. In the early 20th century, several small, practical encyclopedias were attempted, including the Cihai, which was similar to an encyclopedia-style dictionary. However, none of these met the requirements of modern encyclopedias.
In the early days of the People's Republic of China, the then-Publishing Supervisory Commission considered publishing a Chinese encyclopedia, and the subsequent 12-year plan for scientific and cultural development also included the compilation of encyclopedias. In 1958, a plan to carry out this work was proposed, but it was not realized. It was not until 1978 that the State Council decided to compile and publish The China Encyclopedia and established China Encyclopedia Press to oversee the project. As China's first encyclopedia, the compilation work was inevitably challenging. However, due to the urgent demand from scholars, it was not feasible to wait for the collection of relatively complete materials from all disciplines before starting the compilation. Nor was it possible to wait for all entries to be written and compiled in alphabetical order by Pinyin before publishing the entire work. Instead, experts and scholars across the country were invited to write entries by discipline, with each discipline published as a separate volume. This approach allowed the encyclopedia to be released progressively. While this inevitably introduced many shortcomings, it was the only viable solution under the circumstances. We plan to adopt the common practice of encyclopedias edited by other countries in the second edition, arranging all entries in alphabetical order rather than by discipline, making it easier for readers to find and reference information.
The first edition of The China Encyclopedia is organized by discipline, with entries within each discipline arranged in alphabetical order, supplemented by a stroke index for Chinese characters and other indexes for easier reference. The content of The China Encyclopedia covers various disciplines and fields, including philosophy, social sciences, literature and art, culture and education, natural sciences, and engineering technology. It is preliminarily planned to include 80 volumes, with each volume containing approximately 1.2 to 1.5 million words (including illustrations and indexes), with the entire set scheduled to be completed in about ten years. The first edition will have more volumes and words than most general encyclopedias published abroad, but its length is comparable to the initial editions of some foreign encyclopedias. We plan to adjust and compress the content in the second edition.
The volumes of The China Encyclopedia are published by discipline, without numbered volumes. Each volume is simply labeled with the discipline name, such as Philosophy, Law, Mechanics, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, and so on. The content of each discipline is written in the form of entries, following the system and hierarchy of the discipline, with a planned total of around 100,000 entries. The entries in each discipline provide a detailed account and introduction to the fundamental knowledge of that discipline, making them suitable for readers with high school education or above, equivalent to university-level knowledge. This encyclopedic reference tool serves as a bridge and stepping stone for readers to enter and explore each discipline in depth.