AbstractPhotosynthetically active radiation (PAR) is a key factor for vegetation growth and climate change. Different types of PAR models, including four physically based models and eight artificial intelligence (AI) models, were proposed for predicting daily PAR. Multiyear daily meteorological parameters observed at 29 Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN) stations and 2474 Chinese Meteorological Administration (CMA) stations across China were used for testing, validating, and comparing the above models. The optimized back propagation (BP) neural network based on the mind evolutionary algorithm (MEA-BP) was the model with highest accuracy and strongest robustness. The correlation coefficient R, mean absolute bias error (MAE), and RMSE for MEA-BP were 0.986, 0.302 MJ m−2 day−1 and 0.393 MJ m−2 day−1, respectively. Then, a high-density PAR dataset was constructed for the first time using the MEA-BP model at 2474 CMA stations of China. A quality control process and homogenization test (using RHtestsV4) for the PAR dataset were further conducted. This high-density PAR dataset would benefit many climate and ecological studies.