Otto Franke (Chinese: 福蘭閣; pinyin: Fúlángé; 27 September 1863 – 5 August 1946) was a German diplomat, sinologist, and historian.

After serving in the military, he entered the graduate school of the University of Göttingen, studying Sanskrit, German history, law, and Chinese.

[1] Although inclined toward an academic career, Franke was unable to pursue it at the time and instead found a job as an interpreter for the German embassy in Beijing, capital of the Qing Empire.

In 1913, he published his first major work, a translation of the Geng Zhi Tu (耕織圖), a Song dynasty Chinese manual for farming and sericulture.

His seminar became a major center for German sinology, attracting scholars such as Wolfram Eberhard, Hellmut Wilhelm, Étienne Balazs, as well as his own son Wolfgang.

He devoted his retirement to researching and writing his magnum opus, Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches (History of the Chinese Empire); the first volume was published in 1931.

[2] Swiss historian Marc Winter compares his end to that of French sinologist Henri Maspero, who died in the Buchenwald concentration camp: "Otto Franke lived to see the end of the war as an old and broken man, unable to finish his Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches [...] his life was ruined like Maspero's, albeit in a less direct and criminal manner.

Their youngest child, Wolfgang Franke (1912–2007), became a sinologist and succeeded his father as sinology chair of the University of Hamburg.