Strictly speaking, there is no national or provincial distinction standard for periodicals and magazines. Because the State Press and Publication Administration has long stated that there are only formal and informal publications in China, and there are no so-called national and provincial publications.

In real life, many people usually say that a publication is national and a publication is provincial or municipal. This division is still useful in real life. The standard of this division is roughly:

National periodicals:

Generally speaking, "national" periodicals refer to periodicals sponsored by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the State Council and their subordinate departments, or China Academy of Sciences, China Academy of Social Sciences, democratic parties and national people's organizations, and periodicals sponsored by national professional societies. In addition, publications clearly marked with the words "national journals" and "core journals" can also be regarded as national journals.

Provincial periodicals:

That is, it is sponsored by ministries, commissions, departments, bureaus, research institutes, provincial social organizations and institutions, and institutions of higher learning in all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government. There are academic journals registered in the press and publication department and publicly distributed at home and abroad.

Core journals:

To put it simply, core journals are the most important core journals, which are tracked and evaluated by academic circles through a set of scientific methods and classified and graded according to the theory of information science.

CN publications:

A publication registered in China and publicly distributed in China. The serial numbers of these publications are all marked with the letter CN, and people are used to calling them CN publications.

At present, there are 7 core journals in China.

Peking University Library's Chinese Core Periodical,

Nanjing University "China Social Science Citation Index (CSSCI) Source Periodical".

China Academy of Sciences Literature Information Center "China Science Citation Database (CSCD) Source Journals".

China Institute of Sci-tech Information, Statistical Source Journal of China Sci-tech Papers (also known as China Sci-tech Core Journal).

Document Information Center of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is the core periodical of humanities and social sciences in China.

The journal of China Humanities and Social Sciences Society is the core periodical of China Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Wanfang data Co., Ltd. is building the "Selected Database of Core Journals in China".