China Encyclopedia Dictionary

Author: Editorial Committee of the Great Chinese Encyclopedia
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-05-01
Features: In light of social development and the ever-growing needs of readers, the Great Chinese Encyclopedia has been extensively revised in many fields. This edition further emphasizes two key areas: cultural and basic science disciplines, as well as political, economic, literary, and religious disciplines.
Cultural and basic science disciplines, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, and history, start from junior high school level and follow the high school curriculum as the main thread, with explanations progressing from simple to advanced, reaching up to the forefront of modern science. Political, economic, literary, and religious disciplines focus on major events in daily social life to introduce relevant basic knowledge. For example, in international affairs, to help readers understand the Middle Eastern situation, additional entries reflecting the geography, history, and culture of the Mesopotamian region have been added. At the same time, entries on armed forces of some countries and regions with significant impacts on global security have been included. Some countries' armed forces, though not () to world security, are also featured for their unique characteristics, such as Switzerland.
Additionally, to clarify various controversies surrounding the first 17 years of the People's Republic of China (1949–1966), the main entry "Socialist Construction General Line" has been used to provide a comprehensive overview through references to over 40 subentries. To ensure the authenticity of this content, only declassified central meeting minutes and central documents have been cited, (recreating the true nature of this period in history).
In geography, entries for all counties in China and nature reserves have been added, as well as all human intangible cultural heritage and (intangible cultural heritage) representatives and (material cultural heritage) of world cultural and natural heritage.
In Chinese literature, significant revisions have been made, including the addition of popular literature branches and supplementary entries on influential ancient prose, odes, and poems. In many entries for poems and prose, efforts have been made to include original texts. Shorter original texts are fully included in the explanations, while longer texts of over 300 words are recorded on the accompanying CD-ROM for readers to reference. Some highly influential long works, such as "The Peacock Flying Southwest," "The Plum in the Snow," "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow," and "The Ballad of the Qin Woman," are exceptions and are fully quoted in the entries.
Furthermore, many additions have been made in other fields such as medicine, astronomy, environmental science, national literature, art, and religion, with over 5,000 new entries added, totaling approximately 3.5 million words.