Made up of the headquarters Wenhan Ge (pavilion) in Beijing and three branches－Wenji Ge in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, Wenrun Ge in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, and Wenqin Ge in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong province－the new archives will shoulder the responsibility of preserving and carrying forward the edition resources of China as a gene bank for the seeds of Chinese civilization.

Sitting at the foot of the Yanshan Mountains, Wenhan Ge is about 50 kilometers from downtown Beijing. Now, it is home to more than 16 million copies and editions of various publications, in a broad sense, as that includes the inscribed bronzeware.

The extensive collection is generally grouped into 10 categories, including all the editions of publications since the founding of the People's Republic of China, as well as books created through the techniques of woodblock printing and rubbings, genealogy books, currency, stamps, historic ancient Chinese books, revolutionary literature, religious literature and fine editions of foreign books, among others.