GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS ANNOUNCES XINHUA DICTIONARY AS THE “MOST POPULAR DICTIONARY” AND THE “BEST-SELLING BOOK (REGULARLY UPDATED)”
April 12, 2016, London— At a presentation ceremony in London, Guinness World Records confirmed that Xinhua Dictionary published by China’s The Commercial Press is the “Most popular dictionary” and the “Best-selling book (regularly updated)”. As of 28 July 2015 (last updated date), Xinhua Dictionary had sold 567 million copies globally.
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Photo caption: Marco Frigatti, SVP Records of GWR, presented the certificates to Tan Yue, President of China Publishing Group Cooperation (CPG), and Yu Dianli, President of The Commercial Press, Ltd. (CP)
Marco Frigatti, SVP Records at Guinness World Records said, “Over the past year, our teams have completed extensive data investigation, collection and examination for these two records and we are delighted to verify that Xinhua Dictionary is the most popular dictionary and the best-selling regularly updated book.”
Speaking in Beijing, Rowan Simons, President of Greater China, Guinness World Records said, “We publish one of the world’s most successful reference books and yet we stand in awe before this little dictionary. To sell over half a billion copies is an amazing achievement and one can easily imagine how important it has been in promoting learning of Chinese language.”
Mr. Tan Yue, President of China Publishing Group, said, "China Publishing Group has many time-honored member publishing houses and comprehensively recognized publications, among which The Commercial Press and Xinhua Dictionary are typical examples. The ‘Most popular dictionary’ and 'Best-selling book (regularly updated)' record titles themselves are the epitome of Sino-Foreign cultural exchange, showing the increasing international influence of Chinese language from a micro level."
Mr. Yu Dianli, President of The Commercial Press, said, "The Commercial Press is the first modern publishing house of China, also honored as 'Kingdom of Dictionary' and 'Stronghold for Academic Publishing'. The two Guinness World Records titles held by Xinhua Dictionary confirm the international influence of this famous title, and will bring more opportunities for cooperation between globally famous cultural institutes, such as GWR, and our press."
Xinhua Dictionaryis published by The Commercial Press and is the first modern Chinese dictionary since the foundation of PRC. As the crystallization of painstaking work and wisdom of many scholars, Xinhua Dictionary has been a tool for several generations of Chinese people, bearing the culture of a great country and impacting the linguistic lives of billions. The dictionary has made great contributions to cultural popularization and educational enterprise of the Chinese nation and has become a symbol of Chinese culture.
Due to its easy-to-carry size and abundant content in plain language, the dictionary has become also a great help for foreigners to learn Chinese language and culture.
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About Guinness World Records
GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS (GWR) is the global authority on record-breaking achievement. First published in 1955, the iconic annual Guinness World Records books have sold over 136 million copies in over 20 languages and in more than 100 countries. Additionally, theGuinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition, first published in 2007, has sold more than 4 million copies to date.
Guinness World Records’ worldwide television programmes reach over 750 million viewers annually, and more than a million people subscribe to the GWR YouTube channel, which enjoys more than 300 million views per year. The GWR website receives 18 million visitors annually, and we have over 10 million fans on Facebook.
The Guinness World Records commercial sales division provides bespoke consultancy services for some of the world’s top brands and agencies to help place record breaking at the heart of their marketing campaigns, employee-engagement programmes, and live and experiential events.
About The Commercial Press
Established in Shanghai in 1897, CP is the first modern publishing house of China, and also currently the cultural institute of greatest strength and influence in China. For the last 120 years, CP has taken on the responsibility of “promoting education and enlightening people” as her mission, publishing over 50,000 titles and striving to forward Chinese culture and spread knowledge from the outside world. Despite all kinds of trials and tribulations, CP has achieved great success in China’s publishing industry, and been known as the “Kingdom of Dictionary” and “Stronghold for Academic Publishing”. In recent years, many titles for mass readers have been published by CP and comprehensively recognized.
