Xinhua Zidian

The Xinhua Zidian (simplified Chinese: 新华字典; traditional Chinese: 新華字典; pinyin: Xīnhuá Zìdiǎn; literally: "New Chinese Dictionary") is a Chinese language dictionary published by the Commercial Press. It is the best-selling Chinese dictionary and the world's most popular reference work (Xinhua 2004). This pocket-sized dictionary of Chinese characters uses simplified Chinese characters and pinyin romanization. The most recent Xinhua Zidian edition (the 11th) contains 3,300 compounds and includes over 13,000 logograms, including traditional Chinese characters and variant Chinese characters. Bopomofo is used as a supplement alongside Pinyin. Xinhua Zidian is divided into 189 "radicals" or "section headers" (DeFrancis 1984:291).

Under the aegis of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the People's Education Press published the original Xinhua Zidian in 1953. The linguist and lexicographer Wei Jiangong (魏建功, 1901–1980) was chief editor. In 1957, Commercial Press published the Xinhua Zidian (1st edition), which was alphabetically collated in pinyin order. They have subsequently revised this dictionary ten times, with over 200 printing runs, and it is a longtime bestseller among students in China. In early 2004, the total number of published copies exceeded 400 million, unquestionably making the Xinhua Zidian the most popular dictionary in the world.

Besides their popular concise version Xinhua Zidian, Commercial Press also publishes a large-print edition and a Xinhua Dictionary with English Translation (Yao 2000, reviewed by Clark 2001). In addition, the Shanxi Education Press publishes a pinyin-edition Xinhua Zidian with both characters and orthographically precise transcriptions (Yi et al. 1999).