Nauka was the largest scientific publishing house in the USSR,[1] as well as in the world at one time (in 1982).

In 1972 Nauka published 135 scientific journals, including 31 physical and mathematical, 24 chemical, 29 biological and five popular science journals: Priroda (Nature), Zemlya i Vselennaya (Earth and the Universe), Khimia i zhizn (Chemistry and Life), Kvant (Quantum), and Russkaya rech (Russian speech).

It also published thematic collected works, reference books, textbooks and foreign literature in translation.

Structurally it was a complex of publishing institutions, printing and book selling companies.

The English distributor of the Nauka publications is MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica together with Pleiades Publishing and Springer Science+Business Media.