The Ten General Series, a de facto encyclopedia of ancient China, is a collective name for the ten classic series on ancient Chinese regulations, institutions, politics, and their transformation over thousands of years in Chinese history. It includes three categories: Tongdian (Comprehensive Canon, a historical encyclopedia covering panoply of topics from high antiquity), Tongzhi (General Treaties, a great institutional history of China from its beginnings down through the dynasties), Wenxian Tongkao (General Study of the Literary Remains, a huge encyclopedia of general knowledge). The Ten General Series contains more than 2,700 volumes, totaling more than 30,000,000 characters. Covered are topics such as military affairs, culture, religion, philology, phonetics, the development of families and clans, etc.
The database supports Unicode, browsing, full-text searching, linked images and text, copy/paste, and print. The electronic copy also features Chinese handwriting recognition input, a character dictionary and date conversion tools.
《十通》是《通典》等十部包含了上起远古时期下至清朝末年历代的关于中国社会、政治制度方面的古典文献的总称，包括《通典》、《通志》、《文献通考》三个 系列，全书共计二千七百多卷，三千多万字，内容广博，是了解、研究中国历代典章制度、政治、经济、军事、社会生活、文化制度及其沿革的大型工具书，堪称中国古代社会文化的百科全书。
《十通》包含[唐]杜佑撰《通典》，[宋]郑樵撰《通志》，[元]马端临撰《文献通考》，清高宗敕撰《续通典》、《续通志》、《续文献通考》、《清朝通典》、《清朝通志》、《清朝文献通考》和近代刘锦藻所撰的《清朝续文献通考》，共分为“三通典”“三通志”“四通考”，合称 “十通”。其中的《通典》、《通志》和《文献通考》成就最高，在中国史学中占有极其重要的地位，是史学研究人士必备的工具书。
《十通》采用UNICODE、分类浏览、全文检索、图文对照等典籍数字化制作技术。内嵌手写识别辅助输入功能、联机字典、纪年换算、八卦查询等。文本页的 文字可添加注释、拷贝、列印。
