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, AltNameInfo, AddrInfo, EntryInfo, PostingInfo, SocialAssocInfo, KinshipInfo.

Encoding: Pass Chinese characters as UTF-8 directly — do not URL-encode into hex.