The highest cultural administrative organ in China is the Ministry of Culture, which is a functioning ministry under the State Council and is in charge of cultural and artistic undertakings throughout the country.

Major duties of the Ministry of Culture are: research and stipulate principles, policies and regulations for cultural work; make development strategy and plan of cultural undertakings; instruct the cultural system reform; administrate literature and artistic undertakings, instruct artistic creation and production, support representative, pilot or experimental work, and accelerate artistic development of various kinds; administrate nation wide cultural activities; stipulate plan and policy for cultural industries and guide and coordinate their development; plan and instruct key projects of cultural facilities; administrate cultural market and make development plan; research the development tendency of cultural market and responsible for inspection of the market; administrate social cultural undertakings, make plans and organize to carry the out, and guide the construction and development of various social cultural undertakings; administrate libraries by instructing the building, development and use of book and document resources and accelerating the standardization and modernization of libraries; administrate cultural work for overseas, make policies and regulations on cultural exchanges with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), Macao and Taiwan, sign cultural cooperation agreements and annual plans with foreign countries on behalf of the state, and instruct the work of cultural department under Chinese embassies and in the HKSAR and Macao; administrate the State Relics Protection Bureau according to regulations of the State Council; and do other work handed over by the State Council.

The Ministry of Culture is divided into the following 10 functioning departments according to the above-mentioned duties.