Wikipedia
Also known as Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, The free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit
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. According to Jimmy Wales, its mission is to make the sum of all human knowledge available to every person in the world.
AI overview
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia written and edited by volunteer contributors from around the world, making it the largest reference work ever created. Founded in 2001 and now supported by a nonprofit organization, it aims to provide access to accumulated human knowledge to anyone with an internet connection.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Wikipedia views (30d)
1,257,977 totalvia Wikimedia Pageviews API
Key facts
- Website.name
- Wikipedia
- Website.logo
- upright=0.68|frameless|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.
- Website.logo_caption
- The logo of Wikipedia, a globe made out of puzzle pieces featuring glyphs from various writing systems
- Website.screenshot
- Wikipedia Portal Screenshot (2022).svgborder
- Website.screenshot_alt
- Wikipedia portal showing the different languages sorted by article count
- Website.caption
- Wikipedia's desktop homepage
- Website.collapsible
- yes
- Website.type
- Online encyclopedia
- Website.headquarters
- San Francisco, California, US
~40 min read
Article
66 sectionsContents
- History
- Nupedia
- Launch and growth
- Sister projects
- Milestones
- Impacts of generative AI on Wikipedia views
- Collaborative editing
- Restrictions
- Review of changes
- Vandalism
- Disputes and edit warring
- <span class="anchor" id="Rules and laws governing content and editor behavior"></span><span class="anchor" id="Rules and laws governing content"></span><span class="anchor" id="Censorship"></span> Policies and content
- Content policies and guidelines
- Governance
- Administrators
- Dispute resolution
- Arbitration Committee
- Community
- Research
- Diversity
- Language editions
- English Wikipedia editor numbers
- Reception
- Accuracy of content
- Discouragement in education
- Medical information
- Coverage of topics and systemic bias
- Systemic biases
- Explicit content
- Privacy
- Sexism
- ''Nine Theses''
- Operation
- Wikimedia Foundation and affiliate movements
- Software operations and support
- Automated editing
- Hardware operations and support
- Internal research and operational development
- Internal news publications
- The Wikipedia Library
- Access to content
- Content licensing
- Methods of access<span class="anchor" id="Reusing Wikipedia's content"></span>
- Mobile access<span class="anchor" id="Wikipedia mobile access"></span><span class="anchor" id="Wikipedia mobile"></span>
- Chinese access
- Cultural influence<span class="anchor" id="Influence"></span>
- Trusted source to combat fake news
- Readership
- COVID-19 pandemic
- Cultural significance
- Awards
- Satire
- Publishing
- Research use
- Related projects
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Footnotes
- Wikipedia-affiliated and primary sources
- Sources
- Further reading
- Academic studies
- Books
- Book review–related articles
- External links
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, as of 2026, Wikipedia has grown to over 300 languages and is one of the world's most visited websites. The English Wikipedia, with over 7 million articles, remains the largest of the editions, which together comprise more than 67 million articles and attract more than 1.5 billion unique device visits and 13 million edits per month (about five edits per second on average) as of April 2024. As of December 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%.