WASHINGTON — Discovery Communications and leading Chinese search engine Baidu launched a Chinese-language website on Tuesday featuring content from the US television and multimedia giant.

Baidu will be responsible for managing the website, Discovery.baidu.com, and the Silver Spring, Maryland-based Discovery will be the exclusive content provider, the companies announced in a joint statement.

The website will focus on science, technology, space, natural history, engineering, paleontology, archaeology, history and culture, they said.

Greg Ricca, the president and chief executive of Discovery Networks International, said the launch was an important step in the US company's efforts to build stronger brand awareness in China.

The content, Discovery and Baidu said, will be customized and translated for the Chinese marketplace and be supported by advertising. Baidu and Discovery will share revenue from third-party ad sales.

Discovery television has been available in China since 1998, featuring programming from networks such as the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery Travel and Living, Discovery Home and Health and Discovery Science.

Baidu, founded in 2000, is China's largest search engine with a market share of more than 70 percent.

The number of Internet users in China is now greater than the entire population of the United States, rising to 338 million by the end of June, according to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center.

China's fast-growing online population has made the Web a forum for the country's citizens to express their opinions in a way rarely seen in the strictly government-controlled media.

The growing strength and influence of the Web population has prompted concern in Beijing about potential social unrest, and the government has stepped up its control over the Internet in recent years.