The contract, signed by Airbus chief executive Gustav Humbert and the president of the China Aviation Supplies Import and Export Group, Li Hai, covers aircraft from Airbus's A320 family of single-aisle planes.
The ceremony was also attended by French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.
The deal is nominally worth about US$9.7 billion (A$13 billion). After expected discounts for such a larger order, Le Monde newspaper put the final price at US$7.6 billion.
French President Jacques Chirac, who met Prime Minister Wen just before the signing, welcomed an "important cooperation protocol" China and Airbus signed on Sunday that opened the way for the purchase contract.
That protocol aims to "upgrade" cooperation between the European plane manufacturer and China's civil aviation sector.
It also includes the possibility of establishing an Airbus assembly plant in China that would turn out single-aisle planes like the A320.
"Sino-French cooperation in the aeronautic sector is no longer limited to the acquisition of aircraft, but has entered into a phase of technological cooperation and development,” Mr Wen said.
Other deals signed
The Chinese government delegation also signed a contract to jointly produce a new helicopter with Eurocopter. The aircraft, named the EC175, is to go into development in 2006, with production set for 2011.
Eurocopter is a subsidiary of the European Aerospace, Defence and Space (EADS) company, which also owns 80 percent of Airbus. Britain’s BAE Systems owns the other 20 percent of Airbus.
Other contracts signed included a deal for the French company Alcatel to make a Chinasat 6B telecommunications satellite, and a 150-million-euro
(US$175 million) financing agreement for the construction of a high-speed rail line in China.
Mr Villepin said that "these advances form part of the long-term industrial and technological partnership we want to establish with China," adding that all the deals added up to "nearly nine billion euros."
The Airbus contract is for A320s, which typically seat 150 passengers, and modified versions of the aircraft: the shorter A319, which typically has 124 seats, and the longer A321, which can seat 185 people.
Record deal for Airbus
Airbus said in a statement the deal marked "the largest single order that Airbus has ever received since it entered the Chinese market two decades ago."
It said the aircraft would be delivered to six Chinese airlines: Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Sichuan Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines and Hainan Airlines.
Airbus is seeking to topple US rival Boeing's dominance of the Chinese civil aviation sector by clawing its way up to 50 percent market share. It currently has only around a third compared to Boeing's 60 percent.
Boeing last month notched up orders for 70 of its mid-range planes, the 737s, and options for another 80 during a visit to China by US President George W Bush.
Arms ban denounced
Mr Villepin used the opportunity of a joint media conference with Mr Wen to denounce an EU arms embargo imposed on China in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
"It does not reflect the reality of our relations with China, nor the strategic partnership we are building with it," he said. France has been seeking to have the embargo lifted.
But 97 French MPs, all members of a parliamentary group on Tibet, used the occasion of Mr Wen's visit to demand that France press China on the future of Tibet.
China has become one of the world's three major aviation markets after Europe and the United States.
Last month, Boeing signed a US$4-billion deal to supply 70 new 737 aircraft to eight Chinese airlines. In January, Boeing said it was selling 60 new 787 passenger jets to China for US$7.2 billion.