This article is about the online encyclopedia. For Wikipedia's home page, see Main Page. For the primary English-language Wikipedia, see English Wikipedia. For other uses, see Wikipedia (disambiguation).
Wikipedia
The logo of Wikipedia, a globe featuring glyphs from various writing systems such as English, Greek, Hindi, Chinese, Arabic, and others
Screenshot
Wikipedia's desktop homepage
Type of site
Online encyclopedia
Available in
326 languages
Country of origin
United States
Owner
Wikimedia Foundation
Created by
Jimmy Wales
Larry Sanger[1]
URL
wikipedia.org
Commercial
No
Registration
Optional[note 1]
Users
>291,037 active editors[note 2] >113,364,495 registered users
Launched
January 15, 2001 (23 years ago) (2001-01-15)
Current status
Active
Content license
CC Attribution / Share-Alike 4.0 Most text is also dual-licensed under GFDL; media licensing varies
Written in
LAMP platform[2]
OCLC number
52075003
Wikipedia[note 3] is a free content online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the use of the wiki-based editing system MediaWiki. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history.[3][4] It is consistently ranked as one of the ten most popular websites in the world, and as of 2024 is ranked the fifth most visited website on the Internet by Semrush,[5] and second by Ahrefs.[6] Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on January 15, 2001, Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization that employs a staff of over 700 people.[7]
Initially only available in English, editions in other languages have been developed. Wikipedia's editions, when combined, comprise more than 62 million articles, attracting around 2billion unique device visits per month and more than 14 million edits per month (about 5.2edits per second on average) as of November 2023[update].[8][W 1] Roughly 26% of Wikipedia's traffic is from the United States, followed by Japan at 5.9%, the United Kingdom at 5.4%, Germany at 5%, Russia at 4.8%, and the remaining 54% split among other countries, according to data provided by Similarweb.[9]
Wikipedia has been praised for its enablement of the democratization of knowledge, extent of coverage, unique structure, and culture. It has been criticized for exhibiting systemic bias, particularly gender bias against women and geographical bias against the Global South (Eurocentrism).[10][11][failed verification] While the reliability of Wikipedia was frequently criticized in the 2000s, it has improved over time, receiving greater praise from the late 2010s onward[3][10][12] while becoming an important fact-checking site.[13][14]
Wikipedia has been censored by some national governments, ranging from specific pages to the entire site.[15][16] Articles on breaking news are often accessed as sources for frequently updated information about those events.[17][18]
^Cite error: The named reference autogenerated1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Chapman, Roger (September 6, 2011). "Top 40 Website Programming Languages". rogchap.com. Archived from the original on September 22, 2013. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
^ ab"Wikipedia is 20, and its reputation has never been higher". The Economist. January 9, 2021. Archived from the original on January 7, 2021. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
^Anderson, Chris (May 8, 2006). "Jimmy Wales – The 2006 Time 100". Time. Archived from the original on October 12, 2022. Retrieved November 11, 2017.
^"Most Visited Websites In The World (February 2024)". Exploding Topics. April 7, 2023. Retrieved February 7, 2024.
^"Top Websites Ranking in the World, March 2024". Ahrefs. Retrieved April 6, 2024.
^Seitz-Gruwell, Lisa (October 23, 2023). "7 reasons you should donate to Wikipedia". Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on December 27, 2023. Retrieved December 27, 2023.
^Cite error: The named reference small screen was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"wikipedia.org". similarweb.com.
^ ab"Happy Birthday, Wikipedia". The Economist. January 9, 2021. Archived from the original on January 1, 2023. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
^Harrison, Stephen (June 9, 2020). "How Wikipedia Became a Battleground for Racial Justice". Slate. Archived from the original on February 10, 2023. Retrieved August 17, 2021.
^Cooke, Richard (February 17, 2020). "Wikipedia Is the Last Best Place on the Internet". Wired. Archived from the original on December 17, 2022. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
^Hughes, Taylor; Smith, Jeff; Leavitt, Alex (April 3, 2018). "Helping People Better Assess the Stories They See in News Feed with the Context Button". Meta. Archived from the original on January 11, 2023. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
^Cite error: The named reference auto was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Treisman, Rachel (April 1, 2022). "Russia threatens to fine Wikipedia if it doesn't remove some details about the war". NPR. Archived from the original on December 2, 2022. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
^Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Kelly, Samantha Murphy (May 20, 2022). "Meet the Wikipedia editor who published the Buffalo shooting entry minutes after it started". CNN. Archived from the original on October 12, 2022. Retrieved May 24, 2022.
^McNamee, Kai (September 15, 2022). "Fastest 'was' in the West: Inside Wikipedia's race to cover the queen's death". NPR. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
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Wikipedia is a free content online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration...
The English Wikipedia is the primary English-language edition of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on January...
Wikipedia is a free multilingual open-source wiki-based online encyclopedia edited and maintained by a community of volunteer editors, started on 15 January...
registered there as a charitable foundation. It is best known as the host of Wikipedia, the seventh most visited website in the world. However, the foundation...
Forum for discussions about Wikipedia itself, including policies and technical issues. Site news – Sources of news about Wikipedia and the broader Wikimedia...
The Wikipedia community, collectively and individually known as Wikipedians, is an online community of volunteers who create and maintain Wikipedia, an...
reliability of Wikipedia and its user-generated editing model, particularly its English-language edition, has been questioned and tested. Wikipedia is written...
Depths of Wikipedia is a group of social media accounts dedicated to highlighting facts from Wikipedia. Created on Instagram by Annie Rauwerda in 2020...
The German Wikipedia (German: Deutschsprachige Wikipedia) is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia...
Wikipedia, a free-content online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers known as Wikipedians, began with its first edit on 15...
The Chinese Wikipedia (traditional Chinese: 中文維基百科; simplified Chinese: 中文维基百科; pinyin: Zhōngwén Wéijī Bǎikē) is the written vernacular Chinese (a form...
Wikipedia (Finnish: Suomenkielinen Wikipedia) is the edition of Wikipedia in the Finnish language. By article count, it is the 27th largest Wikipedia...
Wikipedia bots are Internet bots (computer programs) that perform simple, repetitive tasks on Wikipedia. One prominent example of an internet bot used...
The Russian Wikipedia (Russian: Русская Википедия, romanized: Russkaya Vikipediya) is the Russian-language edition of Wikipedia. As of April 2024, it...
On Wikipedia, vandalism is editing the project in an intentionally disruptive or malicious manner. Vandalism includes any addition, removal, or modification...
The Spanish Wikipedia (Spanish: Wikipedia en español) is a Spanish-language edition of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. It has 1,947,773 articles...
The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been criticized since its creation in 2001. Most of the criticism has been directed toward its content, community...
reading Wikipedia articles. Some apps load content from the Wikipedia site and process it; other apps use the MediaWiki API. Some only display Wikipedia content...
There are two co-founders of Wikipedia: Larry Sanger (born 1968), American internet project developer Jimmy Wales (born 1966), American-British internet...
Censorship of Wikipedia by governments has occurred widely in countries including (but not limited to) China, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia...
The Swedish Wikipedia (Swedish: Svenskspråkiga Wikipedia) is the Swedish-language edition of Wikipedia and was started on the 23 of May 2001. It is currently...
Since the launch of Wikipedia in 2001, it has faced several controversies. Wikipedia's open-editing model, under which anyone can edit most articles, has...
The Urdu Wikipedia (Urdu: اردو ویکیپیڈیا), started in January 2004, is the Standard Urdu-language edition of Wikipedia, a free, open-content encyclopedia...
The logo of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia, is an unfinished puzzle globe—some jigsaw pieces are missing at the top—each inscribed with a glyph...
Japanese Wikipedia (ウィキペディア日本語版, Wikipedia Nihongoban, lit. 'Wikipedia Japanese-language version') is the Japanese-language edition of Wikipedia, a free...
The Polish Wikipedia (Polish: Wikipedia Polskojęzyczna) is the Polish-language edition of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. Founded on September 26...
The French Wikipedia (French: Wikipédia en français) is the French-language edition of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. This edition was started...
References to Wikipedia in popular culture have been widespread. Many parody Wikipedia's openness, with individuals vandalizing or modifying articles in...
from one Wikipedia page to another using only internal links. It has many different variations and names, including The Wikipedia Game, Wikipedia Maze, Wikispeedia...
Global Information
