Chinese citation database is the only data in China that can find out what documents are cited.

At present, the Chinese citation database is the only one that can be searched in China, including the citation data of eight kinds of documents, such as periodicals (Chinese and foreign languages), books, dissertations, conference papers, patents, standards, newspapers and yearbooks.

Chinese scientific citation database has the characteristics of the oldest history, strong professionalism, accurate and standardized data, diverse retrieval methods, completeness and convenience. Since it was provided for use, it has been well received by users and is known as "SCI of China". China Science Citation Database is the first citation database in China. Won the second prize of scientific and technological progress of China Academy of Sciences.

1995, CSCD published the first printed edition of Chinese science citation index; 1998 published a CD-ROM of the citation database of China No.1 Zhang Kexue; 1999 published "China scientific metrology index: papers and citation statistics based on CSCD and SCI data and using bibliometrics principle"; In 2003, CSCD was launched.

In 2007, China Science Citation Database cooperated with Thomson Reuters Technology Company. The Chinese science citation database has achieved cross-database retrieval with the Science Network on ISI HowNet platform. Chinese scientific citation database is the first non-English database on ISI knowledge network platform.