On July 17, the Information Office of Liaoning Provincial People’s Government held a press conference to brief on the high-quality development of the province’s archival sector.

As of 2024, Liaoning Province has a total of 115 archival competent departments at the county level and above, 143 archives of various types at all levels, and 5,133 archival offices within government organs, public institutions, and enterprises. The total storage area of archives (offices) amounts to over 504,000 square meters, preserving 146.81 million volumes (items) of archival materials, with 3,272 full-time archivists.

The Liaoning Provincial Archives houses over 1.7 million volumes of archival materials from various historical periods, including 6 items from the Tang Dynasty, 1,077 volumes from the Ming Dynasty, 160,000 volumes from the Qing Dynasty, and more than 10,000 volumes of Qing imperial household archives. Notably, the collection contains 61,600 volumes of Manchu-language archives, ranking first among provincial comprehensive archives in China. These precious archival documents and ancient texts are regarded as the “historical treasures” of the nation and its peoples, possessing significant historical and cultural value.

Recently, the National Archives Administration of China announced the sixth batch of Memory of the World National Register for China. Two groups of precious archives from Liaoning Province were successfully selected, which are the Archives of Sanxing Vice Dutong Yamen during the Qing Dynasty collected by the Liaoning Provincial Archives, and the Archives of Japanese Aggression Activities in the Fengtian Area from 1911 to 1931 collected by the Shenyang Municipal Archives. To date, nine groups of precious archives from Liaoning have been selected into the Register.

Moving forward, Liaoning will focus on cultural protection, inheritance, as well as the activation and utilization of archives, to tell the stories of documentary heritage from past to present, and to further explore their historical and cultural value.