The Encyclopedia Britannica is the oldest general encyclopedia published in English language by Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., a private company owned by Jacqui Safra, a Swiss billionaire and famous actor.

The Britannica mainly targets the educated adult readers although they have developed simplified versions for children. The contents of the Britannica are compiled by a team of 19 fulltime editors and over four thousand writers who possess special knowledge in each category of topics.

Considering the modern-day growth of alternative information sources and the application of technology in imparting knowledge, the Britannica opted for more innovative options to reach to a wider network of readers. Different versions of the Britannica encyclopedia are now available in CD-ROM and DVD. They are conveniently available in the Internet too.

The Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2006 DVD has got over 55 million words and over 100,000 articles. It includes 73,645 articles from the regular Britannica collection and the remaining from the Britannica Elementary Encyclopedia, Britannica Student Encyclopedia and the Britannica Book of the Year (1993-2004) and a few articles from its older versions. The DVD is also featured by supplementary contents such as videos, pictures, maps, and web links. In addition to these, it is provided with a dictionary and thesaurus from Merriam-Webster.