The ''Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana'' (in English: the ''Great Catalan Encyclopedia'') is a

Catalan-language Catalan (; autonym: , ), known in the Valencian Community and Carche as ''Valencian'' (autonym: ), is a Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra, and an official language of three autonomous communities in eastern Spa ...

encyclopedia, started in fascicles, and published in 1968 by . The soul of the work was written by Max Cahner, and the first director was

Jordi Carbonell Jordi Carbonell i de Ballester (; 23 April 1924 – 22 August 2016) was a Spanish politician from Catalonia. A graduate in Romance philology from the University of Barcelona, Carbonell was a professor in Catalan Language at the Autonomous Universi ...

. From the second volume the work had its own publisher: Enciclopedia Catalana SA with

Jordi Pujol Jordi Pujol Soley (, born 9 June 1930) is a Catalan politician who was the leader of the party Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) from 1974 to 2003, and President of the Generalitat de Catalunya from 1980 to 2003. Early life Pujol was ...

, and the new director was .

Overview

The encyclopedia collects alphabetical entries about different subjects: history, geography, cultural studies, etc. It includes worldwide views as well as, when appropriate, Catalan viewpoints and information (meaning that the work is very thorough and often written with first hand information). It also contains a dictionary of common vocabulary, which was reviewed in the first edition of the work by . GEC had a fixed team that wrote the content, and furthermore a broad set of partners, among which were the most prominent experts in each subject, which was involved in the preparation of the GEC with a great desire for service to the Catalan people. Later editions have come out with several volumes and an appendix, as well as a digital edition. In 1991 it received the

Cross of Saint George The Cross of Saint George (russian: Георгиевский крест, Georgiyevskiy krest) is a state decoration of the Russian Federation. It was initially established by Imperial Russia where it was officially known as the Decoration of ...

. The ''Great Catalan Encyclopedia'' gained popularity and sold well, causing the encyclopedia to expand to include a broader series of historical, geographical, and lexical issues.

References

External links

''L'Enciclopèdia''
(free access)

(subscription needed) {{DEFAULTSORT:Gran Enciclopedia Catalana Catalan language Catalan-language encyclopedias 20th-century encyclopedias