A total of 484 articles published in World Journal of Gastroenterology are cited by 361 ISI-SCI covered journals distributed in 38 countries during 1998-2003

Figure 1 Increase in self-citations is significantly lower than the increase in total citations.

Figure 2 Changing trend in overall times and numbers of articles published in WJG between 1998 and 2003 cited by other SCI covered journals.

Figure 3 Geographic distribution of authors and articles in other SCI covered journals that have cited articles published in WJG.

Figure 4 Citing status of articles published in WJG.

Figure 5 Geographic distribution of authors of manuscripts accepted for publication in WJG.

Figure 6 Numbers and percentage of articles with research grants published in WJG.

Figure 7 Number and percentage of the National Natural Science Foundation of China articles supported by published in WJG.