ChinaKnowledge.de -
An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History and Literature

Welcome to ChinaKnowledge.de

Founded in 2000, this online encyclopaedia provides—in a clearly arranged way—information on a wide range of topics in Chinese history, literature, religions, and philosophy. It draws to a great extent upon Chinese-language secondary sources and thus gives access to information rarely found in Western books. This is particularly interesting for those not able or not brave enough to read Chinese. The reader may either use the search function, or browse contents via the navigation tools.

The encyclopaedia includes

  • detailed information on all periods of Chinese history, key events, important persons (over 1,000), and technical terms or catchphrases until the present day
  • more than 2,000 articles on traditional Chinese literature, with bibliographical descriptions of individual texts and treatises on literary genres
  • in-depth articles on religions in China, with a focus on Daoism, the truly native Chinese creed
  • scholarly introductions to all aspects of the Chinese language and form of writing, with many examples from various dictionaries
  • articles not only on the ancient "Hundred Schools", but on all important thinkers up to the 20th century, showing what concepts Confucian philosophers preferred in what age

The texts include Chinese characters (traditional type) and use the Hanyu pinyin transcription, barring a few conventional exceptions.

The editor would like to apologize for any errors or misprints in the texts, which may occur frequently because English is not my mother tongue. I would be deeply grateful for any hints by my readers pointing at errors in typing, language, and—of course—content.

Are you interested in contributing a scholarly article of your own about a lemma not included yet? Just contact me. Your name will be mentioned at the beginning of the article. ChinaKnowledge.de enjoys 14.000 pageviews daily and is indexed in WorldCat.org.