The Twenty-Four Histories, also known as the Orthodox Histories (正史; Zhèngshǐ), are a collection of official histories detailing the dynasties of China, from the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors in the 4th millennium BC to the Ming dynasty in the 17th century.

The Han dynasty historian Sima Qian established many conventions of the genre, though its form was not standardized until much later. Starting with the Tang dynasty, each dynasty established an official office to write the history of its predecessor using official court records, partly in order to establish its own link to the earliest times. As fixed and edited in the Qing dynasty, the whole set contains 3,213 volumes and about 40 million words. It is considered one of the most important sources on Chinese history and culture.

The title Twenty-Four Histories dates from 1775, which was the 40th year in the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. This was when the last volume, the History of Ming and was reworked and a complete set of the histories was produced.

The idea of compiling a collection of Chinese official histories have existed as the Three Kingdoms era, when the Three Histories consisted of Shiji, Book of Han, and Dongguan Hanji. Book of the Later Han would later gradually replace the Dongguan Hanji. After the Records of the Three Kingdoms appeared, it was soon tacked on to produce the Early Four Historiographies 前四史.

By the Tang dynasty, the ten official histories starting from Records of the Three Kingdoms and ending with Book of Sui were collectively called the Ten Histories. Combined with the earlier three, they make the Thirteen Histories. Two Tang scholars have written works based on the Thirteen Histories: Criticism of the Thirteen Histories by Wu Wuling [zh] (20 volumes) and Index of the Thirteen Histories by Song Jian (10 volumes).

During the Song dynasty, on top of on the Thirteen Histories, History of the Southern Dynasties, History of the Northern Dynasties, New Book of Tang, and New History of the Five Dynasties were added to form the Seventeen Histories. Northern Song's Wang Ling (Song Dynasty) [zh] wrote Master Wang's Enlightenment on the Seventeen Histories, and Southern Song's Lü Zuqian wrote Detailed Excerpts of the Seventeen Histories.

The Twenty-One Histories was formed during the Ming dynasty. Qing dynasty's Gu Yanwu wrote in Daily Knowledge Records: Official Edition of Twenty-One Histories 日知錄·監本二十一史: "In Song times there were only seventeen histories, now with the addition of the histories of Song, Liao, Jin, and Yuan, there are twenty-one histories."

During the Yongzheng period of the Qing dynasty, after the completion of the History of Ming, they were collectively known as the Twenty-Two Histories, and Zhao Yi's Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories was named accordingly. Later, with the addition of the Old Book of Tang, it became the Twenty-Three Histories. When compiling the Complete Library in Four Sections, the Old History of the Five Dynasties, which was extracted from the Yongle Encyclopedia, was also included, making it the Twenty-Four Histories.