The internet version of China's national encyclopedia will go online in 2018 to compete against -- and eventually replace -- Wikipedia.

The Chinese central government is employing more than 20,000 authors from universities and research institutes representing over 100 disciplines to write the stories for the online edition of the Chinese Encyclopaedia.

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The third edition of this book and its online version is intended as China's first digital book of "everything." It will feature more than 300,000 entries, each about 1,000 words long, making it twice as large as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and about the same size as the Chinese-language version of Wikipedia.

Access to Wikipedia, however, is mostly banned in China.

In March 2012, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. said it will no longer publish printed editions, and will focus instead on Encyclopædia Britannica Online. The 2010 edition of the Britannica was the last printed version and was sold until stock ran out in 2012.

The Chinese Encyclopaedia was approved by the State Council, China's cabinet, in 2011, but work on it began only recently.

"The Chinese Encyclopaedia is not a book, but a Great Wall of culture," noted Yang Muzhi, editor-in-chief of the project and the chairman of the Book and Periodicals Distribution Association of China.

Yang said China was under international pressure and felt an urgent need to produce its own encyclopaedia to "guide and lead the public and society."

With the help of information technology, the Chinese Encyclopaedia will present a new face to its audience, said Bai Chunli, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

It will also showcase China's latest science and technology development; promote historical heritage; increase cultural soft power and strengthen the core values of socialism, all of which are in line with instructions given by Chinese president Xi Jinping.

The first 74-volume first edition of the Chinese Encyclopaedia was completed in 1993 after 15 years of work. Hundreds of scientists, historians, artists and writers participated in the effort.