Ji is the outline of the whole book, which records the words and deeds of emperors according to the time of year and month. Five of them recorded the history of pre-Qin, followed by the five emperors of Xia, Yin, Zhou and Qin. There are seven articles recording the history of Qin and Han Dynasties, followed by Qin Shihuang, Chu Xiangyu, Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang, Gao Zhi, Han Heng, Han Jingdi Liu Qi and Emperor Wudi.
The "aristocratic family" describes the historical relics of the vassal's seal of the country and the deeds of particularly important people.
Biography is the life stories of other representatives except emperors and generals and the biographies of ethnic minorities.
Historical records, from the legendary Yellow Emperor to the first year of Emperor founding ceremony (BC 122), describe the history of China for about 3,000 years. According to Sima Qian, the book has 12 biographies, tables 10, 8 books, 30 aristocratic families and 70 biographies, with a total of 130 articles, about 526,500 words.