The is one of Japan's two major

encyclopedia An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

s, the other being the ''

Encyclopedia Nipponica The is an encyclopedia of Japan and the Japanese people, first published by Shogakukan from 1984 to 1989 in 25 volumes. After 10 years of preparation, over 130,000 entries and 500,000 indexes were organized in alphabetical order in more than 23,00 ...

''. The ''World Encyclopedia'' is widely held to be the most complete and up-to-date encyclopedia in the

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ma ...

Formats

The Heibonsha ''World Encyclopedia'' currently exists in three slightly different editions: *the ''World Encyclopedia'', originally published in 1988 by

Heibonsha Heibonsha (平凡社) is a Japanese publishing company based in Tokyo, which publishes Encyclopedia, encyclopedias, dictionaries and books in the fields of science and philosophy. Since 1945 it has also published books on art and literature.

, Tokyo, and based on the ''Heibonsha Encyclopedia (Heibonsha Dai-hyakka Jiten)'' published in 1984–1985 *the ''World Encyclopedia'' on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

*the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

-only ''Netto de Hyakka'' (ネットで百科), which was started in 1999 The 1984–1985 ''Heibonsha Encyclopedia'' was published in sixteen volumes, while the 1988 ''World Encyclopedia'' had thirty-five volumes. The content changed very little between these two editions, but the latter version was published on heavier

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...

and included several additional indexes and supplementary volumes. The ''Heibonsha Encyclopedia'' is no longer being published in a print edition, and is instead being produced in the above-mentioned DVD and Internet formats. A reduced version of this encyclopedia is also available in numerous

Japanese electronic dictionaries An electronic dictionary is a dictionary whose data exists in digital form and can be accessed through a number of different media. Electronic dictionaries can be found in several forms, including software installed on tablet or desktop computers ...

, and modified access to ''Netto de Hyakka'' is available using Japanese

cell phones A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

. The content differs only slightly between the various formats. ''Netto de Hyakka'' is constantly updated and therefore provides the most current information, but the majority of articles have not been significantly altered from the text edition. The Internet format is text-only and does not include the images that are present in the text and DVD version. The current version of ''Netto de hyakka'' (ネットで百科＠Home) is called the ''Network Encyclopedia'' in English, and is provided by Hitachi Systems and Services. Heibonsha no longer provides support for electronic versions of the ''World Encyclopedia''.

Characteristics

All articles in the ''Heibonsha Encyclopedia'' are signed by their authors. The encyclopedia does not include a list of reference works used in each article. Articles differ widely in length based on the significance of the topic. The encyclopedia covers a wide variety of topics of both general and specific interest, with particular attention to topics relating to Japan. The 1988 edition features 90,000 entries and includes an index that lists cross-references for approximately 400,000 terms. Beginning with the 1988 edition, the encyclopedia has included an index in Western character sets for more convenient searching of foreign words.

References

{{Authority control Japanese online encyclopedias Japanese encyclopedias 1984 non-fiction books 1985 non-fiction books 1988 non-fiction books 20th-century encyclopedias 21st-century encyclopedias

Formats

Characteristics

See also

References