The First Historical Archives of China was approved by the State Council as one of the first batch of national key units for the protection of ancient books. Founded in 1925, the archive is a national-level archive dedicated to preserving the archives of central government agencies and the imperial family during the Ming and Qing dynasties, and it houses archives from central government agencies and a small number of local government agencies. The archive is located on the north side of the West Hua Gate of the Palace Museum in Beijing, and the new archive is located in the core area of Beijing, covering an area of 13,400 square meters with a total construction area of 99,000 square meters. It has a collection of more than 10 million archives in 74 categories.