A comprehensive work covering the about 100,000 species of Coleoptera known to occur in the Palaearctic Region. The complete work is planned for 8 volumes that will be published in intervals of about 18 months. The information provided for each species will be the following: Primary taxonomic information of all available names in the genus and species levels published by the end of 1999. The taxonomic information below subfamily will be organized alphabetically. The type species of genera and subgenera, incl. synonyms, are given. The area covered also includes  the Arabian Peninsula, Himalayas and China. The distributional data of species and subspecies is given per country. Detailed distributional information for strict endemics is given. Introduced species are indicated. The catalogue is a collective work of about one hundred coleopterists from Europe, Japan, America and Australia.