CBDB API

Query the China Biographical Database (~500K historical Chinese figures, 7th c. BCE–19th c. CE).

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API endpoint:

https://cbdb.fas.harvard.edu/cbdbapi/person.php

Response structure is deeply nested:

response["Package"]["PersonAuthority"]["PersonInfo"]["Person"]

The Person object contains: BasicInfo, PersonAliases.Alias, PersonAddresses.Address, PersonEntryInfo.Entry, PersonPostings.Posting, PersonSocialStatus.SocialStatus, PersonKinshipInfo.Kinship, PersonSocialAssociation.Association, PersonTexts.Text, PersonSources.Source.

Each section is a dict when it has records, but an empty string "" when it has none. Inside a section, one record may come back as a dict and several as a list. Person itself may also be a list if the name matches more than one person.