Wikipedia

Extracted Attributes

• Type

  Free online encyclopedia

• Award

  Erasmus Prize

• Software

  MediaWiki

• Languages

  Over 340

• Headquarters

  San Francisco, USA

• Funding Model

  Reader donations

• Monthly Edits

  13 million edits (about 5 edits per second)

• Website Rank (April 2024)

  9th most visited website globally

• Total Articles (April 2024)

  More than 65 million articles

• Monthly Unique Device Visits

  Over 1.5 billion visits

• English Wikipedia Articles (April 2024)

  Over 7 million articles

• Traffic by Country (September 2025 Projection)

  United States >25%, Japan ~7%, United Kingdom ~5%, Germany ~5%, Russia ~5%

Timeline

• The name "Wikipedia" was suggested by Larry Sanger, a portmanteau of "wiki" and "encyclopedia". (Source: Web Search Results)

  2001-01-11

• The wikipedia.com domain name was registered. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2001-01-12

• The wikipedia.org domain name was registered and brought online. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2001-01-13

• Wikipedia was formally launched as a side-project and feature of Nupedia.com. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, Wikidata, DBPedia, Web Search Results)

  2001-01-15

• Following objections from Nupedia's advisory board, Wikipedia was relaunched as an independent website. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2001-01-18

• In its first year, Wikipedia expanded to approximately 20,000 articles across 18 languages. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2001

• The Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization, began hosting Wikipedia. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, DBPedia, Web Search Results)

  2003

• Nupedia was terminated, and its articles were moved into Wikipedia. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2003

• Wikipedia's reliability was frequently criticized. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, DBPedia)

  2000s

• Wikipedia was ranked the world's seventh-most-popular website by Alexa Internet. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2015-07-01

• Facebook and YouTube announced they would help users detect fake news by suggesting fact-checking links to related Wikipedia articles. (Source: DBPedia)

  2018-04

• Wikipedia's reliability improved, receiving greater praise from the late 2010s onward. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, DBPedia)

  2010s-late

• Wikipedia was ranked the 5th most popular site in the world by Similarweb. (Source: DBPedia)

  2022

• The English Wikipedia contained over 7 million articles, contributing to a global total of more than 65 million articles. The site attracted over 1.5 billion unique device visits and 13 million edits monthly, ranking as the world's ninth most visited website. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia)

  2024-04

• Projected traffic data indicates over 25% of Wikipedia's traffic comes from the United States, with Japan accounting for nearly 7%, and the United Kingdom, Germany, and Russia each representing around 5%. (Source: Wikipedia)

  2025-09

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001, Wikipedia has been hosted since 2003 by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization funded mainly by donations from readers. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history. Initially available only in English, Wikipedia exists in over 340 languages and is the world's ninth most visited website. The English Wikipedia, with over 7 million articles, remains the largest of the editions, which together comprise more than 65 million articles and attract more than 1.5 billion unique device visits and 13 million edits per month (about 5 edits per second on average) as of April 2024. As of September 2025, over 25% of Wikipedia's traffic comes from the United States, while Japan accounts for nearly 7%, and the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia each represent around 5%. Wikipedia has been praised for enabling the democratization of knowledge, its extensive coverage, unique structure, and culture. Wikipedia has been censored by some national governments, ranging from specific pages to the entire site. Wikipedia's volunteer editors have written extensively on a wide variety of topics, but the encyclopedia has also been criticized for systemic bias, such as a gender bias against women and a geographical bias against the Global South. While the reliability of Wikipedia was frequently criticized in the 2000s, it has improved over time, receiving greater praise from the late 2010s onward. Articles on breaking news are often accessed as sources for up-to-date information about those events.

Web Search Results

• Wikipedia | Definition, Encyclopedia, History, & Facts | Britannica

  Wikipedia, free Internet-based encyclopedia, started in 2001, that operates under an open-source management style. It is overseen by the nonprofitWikimedia Foundation. _Wikipedia_ uses collaborative software known as a wiki that facilitates the creation and development of articles. Although some highly publicized problems have called attention to _Wikipedia_’s editorial process, they have done little to dampen public use of the resource, which is one of the most visited sites on the Internet. [...] On January 15, 2001, _Wikipedia_ was launched as a feature of Nupedia.com, but, following objections from the advisory board, it was relaunched as an independent website a few days later. In its first year _Wikipedia_ expanded to some 20,000 articles in 18 languages, including French, German, Polish, Dutch, Hebrew, Chinese, and Esperanto. In 2003 _Nupedia_ was terminated and its articles moved into _Wikipedia_. [...] Official Site of Wikipedia

• History of Wikipedia

  In mid-2015, Wikipedia was the world's seventh-most-popular website according to Alexa Internet, down one place from the position it held in November 2012. At the start of 2015, Wikipedia remained the largest general-knowledge encyclopedia online, with a combined total of over 36 million mainspace articles across all 291 language editions. On average, Wikipedia receives a total of 10 billion global pageviews from around 495 million unique visitors every month, including 85 million visitors from [...] In January 2001, Wikipedia began as a side-project of Nupedia, to allow collaboration on articles prior to entering the peer-review process. The name was suggested by Sanger on 11 January 2001 as a portmanteau of the words wiki (Hawaiian for "quick") and encyclopedia. The wikipedia.com and wikipedia.org domain names were registered on 12 and 13 January, respectively, with wikipedia.org being brought online on the same day. The project formally opened on 15 January ("Wikipedia Day"), with the [...] Wikipedia was initially conceived as a feeder project for the Wales-founded Nupedia, an earlier project to produce a free online encyclopedia, volunteered by Bomis, a web-advertising firm owned by Jimmy Wales, Tim Shell and Michael E. Davis "Michael E. Davis (businessman)"). Nupedia was founded upon the use of qualified volunteer contributors and a considered multi-step peer review process. Despite its mailing list of over 2000 interested editors, and the presence of Sanger as full-time

• Wikipedia

  After nearly 25 years, Wikipedia is still the internet we were promised—created by people, not by machines. It's not perfect, but it's not here to push a point of view. It's owned by a non-profit, not a giant technology company or a billionaire. Most readers donate because Wikipedia is useful to them, others because Wikipedia is more important than ever. If you feel the same, please donate $2.75 today—or consider a monthly gift to help all year. Thank you. [...] After nearly 25 years, Wikipedia is still the internet we were promised— an oasis of free and collaborative knowledge. Today, we ask you to join the 2% of readers who support this space. If everyone reading this right now gave just $2.75, we'd reach our goal quickly. — The Wikimedia Foundation, host of Wikipedia and its sister sites. Donate now [...] # Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia Donate now You deserve an explanation. An important update for readers in the United States. Please don't skip this 1-minute read. Today we're running a short fundraiser to support Wikipedia. If you've lost count of how many times you've visited Wikipedia this year, we hope that means it's given you at least $2.75 of knowledge. If so, please join the 2% of readers who give to keep this resource available for all.

• How He Started Wikipedia! - YouTube

  this book had to be updated with new information and that's simply not practical twenty years later the internet was invented and Jimmy had an idea what if we could put all the world's knowledge on the internet back then this was a REV evolutionary idea he called it we peace what does Wikipedia mean so Wiki is from a Hawaiian word wiki wiki which means quick and the idea is quick collaboration and we adapted that concept to say let's make an encyclopedia so hence the name Wikipedia Wikipedia [...] was a for-profit company the idea was to write articles sell ads and use the money to pay editors and maybe make a bit of money but this is where it gets interesting at some point he made the decision to make Wikipedia 100 free who does that me no more ads no monthly subscription no Revenue no Profit just free knowledge making Wikipedia free was the best decision of my life the minute he made it free editors from around the world came together to contribute and put all human knowledge in one [...] daily exists because of Wikipedia the world changed because of Wikipedia we owe so much to Wikipedia and the person that started all of this is just a simple guy living in London called Jimmy [Music] thank you

• Wikipedia:Featured pictures

  Content listings ## Topics Current events Reference Culture Geography Health History Mathematics Nature People Philosophy Religion Society Technology ## Types Vital articles Featured content Good articles Spoken articles Overviews Outlines Lists Portals Glossaries Categories Indices ## Places, people and times

• Award

  Erasmus Prize

• Image

  

• Founder

  Jimmy Wales

• Instance Of

  Q14827288

• Headquarters

  San Francisco

• Inception Date

  1/15/2001

Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers through open collaboration and a wiki-based editing system. Its editors are known as Wikipedians. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history. It is consistently one of the 10 most popular websites ranked by Similarweb and formerly Alexa; as of 2022, Wikipedia was ranked the 5th most popular site in the world. It is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American non-profit organization funded mainly through donations. Wikipedia was launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on January 15, 2001. Sanger coined its name as a blend of wiki and encyclopedia. Wales was influenced by the "spontaneous order" ideas associated with Friedrich Hayek and the Austrian School of economics after being exposed to these ideas by the libertarian economist Mark Thornton. Initially available only in English, versions in other languages were quickly developed. Its combined editions comprise more than 60 million articles, attracting around 2 billion unique device visits per month and more than 17 million edits per month (1.9 edits per second) as of November 2020. In 2006, Time magazine stated that the policy of allowing anyone to edit had made Wikipedia the "biggest (and perhaps best) encyclopedia in the world". Wikipedia has been praised for its enablement of the democratization of knowledge, extent of coverage, unique structure, culture, and reduced degree of commercial bias; but criticism for exhibiting systemic bias, particularly gender bias against women and alleged ideological bias. The reliability of Wikipedia was frequently criticized in the 2000s, but has improved over time, as Wikipedia has been generally praised in the late 2010s and early 2020s. The website's coverage of controversial topics such as American politics and major events like the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has received substantial media attention. It has been censored by world governments, ranging from specific pages to the entire site. In April 2018, Facebook and YouTube announced that they would help users detect fake news by suggesting fact-checking links to related Wikipedia articles. Articles on breaking news are often accessed as a source of frequently updated information about those events.