Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia built by a global community of volunteer editors. It runs on MediaWiki, an open-source wiki platform, and has been hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit funded largely by reader donations, since 2003. Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launched the site in 2001, and it has since become the largest and most widely used reference work in history.

Initially only in English, Wikipedia now offers editions in over 300 languages as of 2026. The English version alone contains more than 7 million articles, while all editions together exceed 67 million. The site attracts over 1.5 billion unique device visits each month, with editors making about 13 million edits per month (roughly five edits per second). Traffic is global: the United States accounts for over 25% of visits, followed by Japan at nearly 7%, and the United Kingdom, Germany, and Russia each around 5%.

Wikipedia has been praised for democratizing knowledge through its open collaboration model and vast coverage. But it has also faced criticism for systemic biases, including a gender gap and a geographic skew toward the Global North. Some governments have censored parts or all of the site, often citing criticism of authorities or blasphemous content. While reliability was a frequent concern in the 2000s, Wikipedia's accuracy has improved significantly, earning broader trust from the late 2010s onward. Its articles on breaking news are often among the first sources consulted for timely information. [edit]