Encyclopedia Americana

The ''Encyclopedia Americana'' was a general encyclopedia written in American English. It was the first general encyclopedia of any magnitude to be published in North America. With ''Collier's Encyclopedia'' and ''Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia Americana'' became one of the three major and large English-language general encyclopedias; the three were sometimes collectively called "the ABCs of encyclopedias". Following the acquisition of Grolier in 2000, Scholastic took over production; in 2018, the Encyclopedia Americana was merged into the Scholastic GO! database.

The encyclopedia has more than 45,000 articles, most of them more than 500 words and many running to considerable length (the "United States" article is over 300,000 words). ''Americana'' is international in scope and is known for its detailed coverage of American and Canadian geography and history. ''Americana'' is also known for its strong coverage of biographies, as well as scientific and technical subjects. Written by 6,500 contributors, the ''Encyclopedia Americana'' includes over 9,000 bibliographies, 150,000 cross-references, 1,000+ tables, 1,200 maps, and almost 4,500 black-and-white line art and color images. It also has 680 fact boxes. Major articles are signed by their contributors, many being scholars pre-eminent in their field.

Long available as a 30-volume print set, the ''Encyclopedia Americana'' is now marketed as an online encyclopedia requiring a subscription. In March 2008, Scholastic said that print sales remained good but that the company was still deciding on the future of the print edition. The company's final print edition was released in 2006. Provided by Wikipedia