The Gujin Tushu Jicheng , is a vast encyclopaedic

Encyclopedia

An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....

 work written in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 during the reigns of Qing

Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

 emperors Kangxi and Yongzheng, completed in 1725. The work was headed initially by scholar Chen Menglei (陳夢雷), and later by Jiang Tingxi

Jiang Tingxi

Jiang Tingxi , courtesy name Yangsun , was a Chinese painter, and an editor of the encyclopedia Gujin Tushu Jicheng .Jiang was born in Changshu, Jiangsu...

. It contained 800,000 pages and over 100 million Chinese character

Chinese character

Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

s. Topics covered included natural phenomena, geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

, history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 and government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

.

The work was printed in 1726 using copper movable type

Movable type

Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....

printing. It spanned around 10 thousand rolls (卷). About 60 copies were made.

One of Yongzheng's brothers patronised the project for a while, although Yongzheng contrived to give exclusive credit to his father Kangxi instead.