General Information

From an 1869 presentation of 933 volumes to the United States by the Emperor of China, the collections of the Asian Division have grown to represent one of the most comprehensive collections of Asian language materials in the world. Housed in the John Adams Building, the collections of the Division include most subject fields, covering an area ranging from the South Asian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to China, Japan, and Korea. Complementing these collections are important materials on Asia in other areas of the Library. These include legal materials, films, manuscripts, maps, music, and photographs maintained in other Divisions. In addition, extensive Western language materials on Asia are housed in the general collection and are available by request in either the Asian Reading Room or the Main Reading Room.

An overview of the Asian Division can be found at here while an illustrated guide of our collection can be found at http://www.loc.gov/rr/asian/guide2007/.

NOTE: The overview is saved in PDF, or Portable Document Format, and you must have the Adobe Acrobat Viewer in order to view these files. You can determine if you have Adobe Acrobat Viewer by searching your files/folders for "Adobe Acrobat Reader". If you don't have this application, download and install it now.