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The historical versions can be found here.

The standalone version of the China Biographical Database (CBDB) contains data on over 521,442 men and women. Both Microsoft Access and SQLite Formats and their downloads are listed below:

Download Latest Microsoft Access Format:

CBDB_be_20220727.7z

Please DO read the CBDB download and installation guide before you start using CBDB Access.

If you encounter an error on Windows 10:  “Missing or broken reference” to a file MSCOMCTL.OCX, follow the instructions in the this PDF.

If you are having trouble downloading the file, please contact hongsuwang(at)fas.harvard.edu.

Download Latest Release SQLite Format:

https://github.com/cbdb-project/cbdb_sqlite/blob/master/latest.7z

The new release of the stand-alone China Biographical Database, CBDB_be_20220727 in MS Access format is now available for download here effective 20220801. There are significant additions of data for Song, Ming, and Qing studies, bibliography, missionary history, and Korean history, and various improvements to query system in the MS Access stand-alone database.

This release contains data on 521,442 men and women.

Bibliography

1. Currently there are 52,272 titles in CBDB, including lost works. 11,018 new links between person and extant title have been added based on the Union Catalogue of Chinese Collectanea 中國叢書綜錄 (Contributor: Edith Enright). All titles and editions in this catalog are being included in CBDB.

Song Studies

1. All identifiable Song dynasty recipients of the jinshi 進士 degree are now in the database, over 25,000 people. Biographical addresses have now been added for 18,605 who had been missing addresses. Based on Gong Yanming 龚延明, 宋代登科记考

2. 400 Song associated societies and teacher-student relationships for children (Contributor: Zhou Yangbo周揚波)

Ming Studies

1. To date 49,527 letter titles have been extracted from the tables of contents of Ming literary collections (Contributor: Katherine Enright), provided by the Center for Chinese Studies 漢學研究中心). This is ongoing. The listing of authors, titles, known recipients, collections are open to all but require registering  here. Work on identification has been supported by the Geiss-Hsu Foundation. 19,506 Ming letter social association have been identified and added to CBDB (Contributors: Katherine Enright, Chen Shiyin 陳士銀). 138 Ming persons have been added to CBDB based on this with 389 alternative names and 141 records of entry into official status. (Contributor: Chen Shiyin 陳士銀)

2.  828 Ming painters, 698 alternative names, 490 scholarly associations, 556 biographical addresses added. Based on Xu Qin 徐沁, Record of Ming Dynasty Painters 明畫錄 (Contributor: Sun Shalan孫莎嵐)

3. 4,078 Ming office titles have been associated with Ming bureaucratic categories. 162 new Ming office titles and 99 new addresses have been added (Contributor: Ning Hao 寧浩).

4. 339 bureaucratic categories have been added to make up the tree of Ming offices (Contributors: Chinese-English Dictionary of Ming Government Official Titles明代職官中英辭典項目, Gao Ce高策, Ma Ji馬季)

5. Data on 3,298 posting to Ming offices added based on data contributed by the Biographical Database of the Academia Sinica Name Authority中研院人名權威人物傳記資料庫.

6. 30,315 data points from biographies in Ming and Qing local gazetteers.  (Contributor: CBDB Crowdsourcing group)

Qing Studies

1. 364 bureaucratic categories making up the Qing dynasty office tree (Contributors: Blaine GAUSTAD, Wang Yushun王宇舜, Ma Ji馬季)

Missionary Studies

1. Data on 352 Protestant missionaries and 1034 of their writings from Bibliography and Bibliography of Protestant Missionaries Arriving in China Before 1867 1867 年以前來華基督教傳教士列傳及著作目錄 (Contributor: Li Yang李楊)

Korean Studies

1. 1,114 Koryo and Choson persons and 1,158 of their alternative names from Chronicles and Biographies of Choson 紀年便攷. Added to the CBDB database preparatory to a study of contact between Korea and China (Contributor: Chen Yafei 陳雅飛)

Improvements to the CBDB Access Query System（Architect: Michael Fuller）

1. Query Texts and Roles: allows searching texts by bibliographic category and persons’ roles in the production of texts, with filters by place and time

2. Look Up Data on a Group of People: a form to quickly collect data on groups of people

3. Code changes for exporting social network data to UCInet and Gephi

4. A “Simplify Kinship Terms” option has been added to Query Kinship

5. A “Store Person ID” button has been added to the Browser, so that once the user has selected a person, that person can be recalled for use in Query Kinship, Query Social Networks, and Query Pair-wise Association by simply clicking on the “Recall Person IDs” command button

6. Information on sources for records has been added to all the forms.