Qing Dynasty Grain Price Database

The Qing Dynasty Grain Price Database consists of data converted from written into numerical prices. The price information is from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), but begins with the year 1736. Each province sent monthly reports to the emperor of the prices for principal grains from each prefect within a province and Zhili Province and prefecture. The Academia Sinica academician, Wang Yeh-chien (1930-2014) who from 1977 when teaching at Kent State University and later when employed at the Institute of Economics, Academica Sinica, Taiwan, together with the Institute of Economics, Beijing Chinese Academy of Social Sciences collected the data and organized the archive. In 2008, the final stages of organizing the archive and setting up the database were completed by the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica and by the end of the year there were altogether approximately 2,190,000 entries in the database. It could be said that for pre-1912 the Qing Dynasty Grain Price Database is the most reliable and rich source for the study of Chinese history; it has the longest unbroken sequence of time and an unchanging statistical method of data information. Therefore it is of high value for academic research.

(From the original website.)