Back Авикипедиа AB Wikipèdia ACE Википедие ADY Wikipedia AF Wikipedia ALS ውክፔዲያ AM Biquipedia AN Wikipǣdia ANG विकिपीडिया ANP ويكيبيديا Arabic

Wikipedia


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
An incomplete sphere made of large, white jigsaw puzzle pieces. Each puzzle piece contains one glyph from a different writing system, with each glyph written in black.
The Wikipedia wordmark which displays the name Wikipedia, written in all caps. The W and the A are the same height and both are taller than the other letters which are also all the same height. It also displays Wikipedia's slogan: "The Free Encyclopedia".
The logo of Wikipedia, a globe featuring glyphs from various writing systems
Screenshot
Wikipedia portal showing the different languages sorted by article count
Wikipedia's desktop homepage
Type of site
Online encyclopedia
Available in326 languages
Country of originUnited States
Owner
Created by
URLwikipedia.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional[note 1]
Users>293,847 active editors[note 2]
>111,221,138 registered users
LaunchedJanuary 15, 2001 (2001-01-15)
Current statusActive
Content license
CC Attribution / Share-Alike 4.0
Most text is also dual-licensed under GFDL; media licensing varies
Written inLAMP platform[2]
OCLC number52075003

Wikipedia[note 3] is a free-content online encyclopedia, written and maintained by a community of volunteers, collectively known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system called MediaWiki. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history.[3][4] It has been ranked consistently one of the 10 most popular websites in the world, and, as of 2023, ranks as the 4th most viewed website by Semrush.[5][6] Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, on January 15, 2001, it is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization.

Initially only available in English, editions in other languages were quickly developed. Wikipedia's editions when combined, comprises more than 62 million articles, attracting around 2 billion unique device visits per month and more than 14 million edits per month (about 5.2 edits per second on average) as of November 2023.[7][8] 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] While the reliability of Wikipedia was frequently criticized in the 2000s, it has improved over time, receiving greater praise in the late 2010s and early 2020s,[3][10][12][note 4] having become 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]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference autogenerated1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Chapman, Roger (September 6, 2011). "Top 40 Website Programming Languages". rogchap.com. Archived from the original on September 22, 2013. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
  3. ^ a b "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.
  4. ^ Anderson, Chris (May 8, 2006). "Jimmy Wales – The 2006 Time 100". Time. Archived from the original on October 12, 2022. Retrieved November 11, 2017.
  5. ^ "Top Websites ranking – Most Visited Websites in the world [December 2022]". Semrush. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  6. ^ "Top Websites in the World – Top Rankings September 2023". Semrush. Retrieved November 5, 2023.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference small screen was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ "Wikistats – Statistics For Wikimedia Projects". Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  9. ^ "wikipedia.org". similarweb.com.
  10. ^ a b "Happy Birthday, Wikipedia". The Economist. January 9, 2021. Archived from the original on January 1, 2023. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
  11. ^ 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.
  12. ^ 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.
  13. ^ 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.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference auto was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ 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.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ 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.
  18. ^ 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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