1.Searching for something? From queries about US politics to cricket in India, Wikipedia has become a source of information for millions of people across the globe.
2.The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates the site, released on Tuesday its annual list of the most-visited Wikipedia pages, showcasing what people wanted to read about this year.
3.The crowdsourced encyclopedia offers a snapshot of what topics captivate the public, become global trends or define a specific year, similar to Oxford’s word of the year. English-language Wikipedia was viewed over 76 billion times globally this year as of October, according to the Wikimedia Foundation.
How frequently do you use Wikipedia as a source of information? What’s your main way of getting information?
4. “The most popular Wikipedia articles are a reflection of our world, highlighting our collective interests at a unique moment in time,” Anusha Alikhan, the chief communications officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, said in a statement.
5. A list of deaths in 2024 was the most visited page, garnering over 44 million views. A page about deaths in a given year has ranked at the top of the list five times since 2015, when the Wikimedia Foundation began releasing the data. The topic has never fallen below third place on the list.
6.People also searched for US political figures, celebrities like Taylor Swift and popular American movies, as well as global sporting events and the general election in India. ChatGPT, which was the top visited article in 2023, fell in its ranking to the 12th most visited page.
US politics and pop culture dominated
7.Wikipedia’s most viewed pages of 2024 were largely related to US popular culture and politics. Vice President Kamala Harris and the 2024 US presidential election were second and third on the list with nearly 29 million and 28 million views, respectively. And the 2020 US presidential election was the 13th most-visited page with views doubling in November.
8. President-elect Donald Trump came in at number five. He has been on the list almost every year since 2015, dropping off in 2022 and 2023 before reappearing this year. Vice President-elect JD Vance was in the top 10, coming in seventh. Project 2025 also got a place in the top 10, coming in ninth with nearly 20 million views.
9. Also in the top 25: Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a close Trump ally who’s been chosen to lead the incoming administration’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” President Joe Biden and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for health secretary.
