Ancient books' list gets longer

The official list of ancient Chinese books was recently expanded.

Last week, the Ministry of Culture released the updated list of key ancient texts in Beijing. It includes more than 900 new sets of books - 754 in Mandarin, 166 in non-Han languages and 14 in foreign languages - taking the existing list to a total of 12,274 sets.

In China, ancient books are defined as those published before the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), including written records on various types of materials like oracle bones and bamboo slips.