Encyclopedia Britannica on the Web

Encyclopedia Britannica (also known as Encyclopædia Britannica) is the most scholarly, authoritative, and well-known encyclopedia in existence today, commonly known in the English-speaking world as "one of the ABC encyclopedias", and one of the world's three largest encyclopedias (the other two being the American Encyclopedia and the Collier's Encyclopedia). Encyclopedia Britannica is one of the three largest encyclopedias in the world (the other two being Encyclopedia Americana and Encyclopedia Collier). Encyclopædia Britannica was published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1771 by the privately owned Encyclopædia Britannica Press, and copyrighted in 1941 by the University of Chicago, where it is now headquartered. This site is its online version.