Biodiversity research increasingly relies on distribution networks for dealing with large-scale primary data.Up-to-date information on biodiversity is critical for the proper management and conservation of any area. The first step towards conservation should be to compile an authoritative species inventory or checklist. Catalogue of Life:Higher Plants in China (CNPC) is an ongoing biodiversity informatics project with the aim to integrate existing higher plants inventory data, and provide access via an internet based web service to public user and the scientific com-munity. The CNPC, for the first time, provides integrated and authoritative taxonomic information on higher plant species found in China, and this database will be permanent, free and continously updated. Presently, a total of 34377 species have been included in the database. Among of them, 16 620 species are only found in China. Taxa are classified into 432 families and 3 941 genera. The CNPC will be an important source for scientists working on Chinese flora, and will play an important role in helping to achieve the targets set under the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation in the future.