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Wikipedia:Multiyear Ranking of Most Viewed Pages
Wikipedia:Multiyear Ranking of Most Viewed Pages
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Current events Wikipedia is the best thing ever... Making it even better? Its public list of stats, shedding light on what the collective world is thinking about.[1]
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About Wikipedia The Multiyear ranking of most viewed Wikipedia pages from December 1, 2007, to the present demonstrates human interests during that period. The views data for Wikipedia's first
Contact us years (2001–2007) is fragmentary and complete data on mobile views is available only since July 1, 2015. This presently precludes the possibility of all-time ranking with the multiyear
Donate perspective being the closest we can get to.
Contribute The lists below include desktop views since December 1, 2007, and mobile views since July 1, 2015.
Help Being one of the best indicators of "what the collective world is thinking about," the list of most viewed Wikipedia pages receives wide attention in unassociated institutions and external
Learn to edit popular media sources. University Degli Studi di Milano created an engine of the complete ranking of all Wikipedia articles for 2014–2019.[2] In 2013, an external media source
Community portal
attempted to determine the 10 most popular Wikipedia pages of all time.[3] The same year the BBC news website published an article discussing most searched Wikipedia articles in
Recent changes
2012 in different languages.[4] Other versions of top-lists for shorter periods are regularly published and discussed by external popular media.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]
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6 Countries
Printable version 7 Cities
8 Buildings, structures and statues
Languages
9 People
Add links
9.1 Singers
9.2 Actors
9.3 Pornographic actors
9.4 Athletes
9.5 Modern political leaders
9.6 Criminals
9.7 Pre-modern people
9.8 3rd-millennium people
9.9 Historical most-viewed 3rd-millennium persons
10 Music bands
11 Sport teams
12 Films and TV series
13 Albums
14 Singles
15 Books and book series
15.1 Pre-modern books and texts
16 See also
17 References
18 External links
Sources
Most-viewed pages were detected from earlier lists for shorter periods (named in "See also" and "External links" below) and such engines as Wikitally (existed until 2017) and
Massview.[12] Massview counts views by category since July 1, 2015. The number of views for the detected pages were found in Multiyear ranking of Wikipedia pages views.[13] This
site gives the approximate number of desktop views since December 1, 2007, and mobile views since July 1, 2015. The site stopped counting by the end of 2019. Views on this site until
June 2015 for desktop include bot pageviews, while those July 2015 for both desktop and mobile exclude identifiable bots and spiders (but may still end up counting many views by bots
and spiders as legitimate human views). This might explain differences in view numbers between this site and the lists of Andrew West for 2015–2018.[14][15][16][17]
Among the conventional pages with mostly human intentional views (ranked pages below), the United States probably took the lead in the pre-viewcount period (2001-2007), as we see
it in the October 2001 list and strongly in all available monthly reports for 2003 and 2004. Having held the first place until January 20, 2021, the US was surpassed by its President,
Donald Trump. The US regained the leadership in August the same year.
Early years
In the years 2001–2007, for which only fragmentary data is available (the rank's "prehistory"), three successive waves seem visible. The first dominant group to take interest in
Wikipedia seem to be students. The list for October 2001 contains mostly school subjects like mathematics, history, geography, etc. Of these, as of 2021, there is one remnant: the
periodic table.
The second wave probably were pages related to the September 11 attacks. They were numerous already in October 2001. The event happened when Wikipedia was only eight months
old and these pages probably fast permeated the “all time” list. Of these, as of 2021, there is also one remnant: September 11 attack.
The third wave was sex. Sex-related articles are common in the monthly lists of 2003–2004. In 2019, there were still 5 such articles in the top-100 list, down to 3 in 2020 and down to 2
in 2021.
Two decades after the launch of Wikipedia however appeared the main human interest. Certainly it is not studies; nor is it terror and even sex.
First two decades
By Wikipedia’s 20th anniversary (in 2021), it had become clear that the most interesting phenomena for humans are… humans, especially contemporaries and especially when they die.
As of January 2021, 63 pages of the top-100 list belong to humans. It was not the case from the beginning. In the October 2001 list, for example, we see one human—the co-founder of
Wikipedia Larry Sanger. Within two decades however a huge human invasion occurred. Humans came seriously and for long.
Correspondingly, the most interesting object in the Universe for humans is the planet of the humans, provided we disregard Star Wars, Darth Vader and the situation comedy called The
Big Bang Theory. Half a millennium after Copernicus and a century after Edwin Hubble, the collective interest remains geocentric.
Top-100 list
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2022).
Covid-19 appeared on the all-time list in June 2020; the page did not exist in the beginning of the year. In this aspect, Covid-19 is the biggest phenomenon Wikipedia has ever known.
Joe Biden debuted on the list on November 12, 2020. Consolation for Donald Trump, he became the first human to reach 200 million views and overall second only after his country.
More consolation for him, on January 20, 2021, he surpassed the United States for the all time lead among the ranked pages in what we know as the first change of the leading page.
The 2021 storming of the United States Capitol gave him the decisive push. By notable contrast, his predecessor Barack Obama could not reach the US in two terms.
Notes
-*The rank omits Wikipedia special and disambiguation pages and pages with a large part of unintentional views.
-**An artifact that somehow gets logged, sometimes after the data source changed.
-***Probably, the consistent popularity of such pages as Google, Wiki, YouTube, and Facebook is due in part to people accidentally typing these site names into a search engine or
address bar when intending to actually visit the sites themselves.[21]
The fall is part of a broader trend. In 2019, vagina and porn were relegated, while sexual intercourse is expected to follow suit in 2022. Yet, it remains dubious whether the trend
represents an improvement in human nature. Among the recent newcomers on the list are Pablo Escobar, Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson. Chronologically, the decline of sex
coincides with the count of mobile views.
Countries
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2021)
Cities
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2021)
Rank Page Continent Views in millions
1 New York City North America 82
2 Singapore Asia 68
3 London Europe 65
4 Hong Kong Asia 54
5 Dubai Asia 46
* Angelsberg Europe 44
6 Los Angeles North America 44
9 Washington, D.C. North America 39
9 Paris Europe 39
11 Chicago North America 38
12 San Francisco North America 32
12 Mumbai Asia 32
14 Rome Europe 29
15 Toronto North America 28
16 Philadelphia North America 27
16 Machu Picchu South America 27
16 Monaco Europe 27
16 Tokyo Asia 27
20 Amsterdam Europe 25
21 Boston North America 24
21 Barcelona Europe 24
21 Seattle North America 24
24 Istanbul Europe/Asia 23
24 Berlin Europe 23
24 Jerusalem Asia 23
27 Pompeii Europe 22
27 Venice Europe 22
27 Vatican Europe 22
27 Vancouver North America 22
27 Macau Asia 22
-*Angelsberg is a Luxembourg town of some 300 people. Somehow, it logged 37.0 million views in two months in 2015. That year it was second only to the Main page in the number of
views.[23]
People
(December 1, 2007 – April 1, 2021)
Donald Trump was not in this list in January 2016; however, a year later (upon his inauguration as president), he became the most popular among people. Four years later (upon his
impeachment), his page became the most popular overall.
Singers
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2022)
The list is primarily made of modern day pop and rap stars with several legends mixed in. Among the names here are Prince and David Bowie who saw many of their page views in
2016 after their deaths.
Actors
(December 1, 2007 – April 1, 2021)
This list omits actors who are singers in order not to repeat half of the previous table.
Pornographic actors
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2021)
Among musicians and actors there is gender equality in popularity. Sport, politics, crime and history are dominated by males. With the millennial males gradually equaling their female
contemporaries, this table remains the only one on this page in which women represent a convincing majority. At least here we see the dream of the Women in Red come true.
Athletes
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2021)
Some professional athletes—Bruce Lee, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dwayne Johnson—are classified among actors (above), since their popularity is mostly due to their filmographic
performance.
Note
Along the rise of Donald Trump, credit for the 2017 performance must be given to Vladimir Putin--he overtook Sarah Palin for the 23rd place. Palin dropped from the list the following
year, mainly due to the mighty advance of the British royal family.
Trump's successor, Joe Biden, debuted on the list in October 2020. By the end of the month, he shared the 22nd place with Stalin. In three more days he reached Margaret on the 21st
rank. The next day, the day of election, Biden added 1.8 million views and equaled another British lady, Elizabeth I, in the top-20. The next day, November 5, he joined his predecessor,
FDR, on the 19th place. The day Biden was confirmed President, November 7, he logged 3 million views and the next day 4 million and rose to the 9th place.
Nevertheless, those days Biden was not the most popular. He was outviewed by Kamala Harris. Having logged 3.5 million views on November 7 and 6.5 million the next day, she
decisively entered the list (at the expense of Che Guevara) to become the only American on the list who is not President.
Projecting the trend of the first two decades of Wikipedia (2001-2021) for two more decades, this list would be limited to US Presidents, the British royal family and Hitler.
Criminals
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2021).
Pre-modern people
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2021)
This category includes personalities born before AD 1400 (exception is made for Joan of Arc born in 1412) who cannot compete with our contemporaries, like Barack Obama and
Michael Jackson. The general top-30 list of people includes 23 living people as of January 2020. This is a feature of the "nascent" Wikipedia. In the course of generations, such top-lists
will contain only people passed away, for view-count continues posthumously.
In total, as of October 12, 2019, Wikipedia counts 1,609,522 people.[24] Of them, 929,502 are living,[25] or 57.75% (more than a half). 143,573 more were living in the Wikipedia
period,[26] raising the percentage of this period’s people to 66.67 (precisely two-thirds). 341,079 more were living in the century preceeding Wikipedia (1901-2000),[27] raising the
percentage of the contemporaries to 87.86. That is, people who lived from the beginning of history until 1900 – 98% of history - constitute only 12.14%.
As of 2021, people born since 1960 AD log as many views as people born before, and the year of parity rises.[28] We are highly tempocentric. Ancestor worship is not our favorite
tradition.
-**Historicity is dubious.
3rd-millennium people
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2022)
Of people born in the 3rd millennium (which is defined here as starting in 2000), the first to receive a personal page in Wikipedia was Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant (born
October 25, 2001). Her page was created on August 4, 2003. She was followed by two other princesses later that year: Lady Louise Windsor of Wessex obtained her page on
November 26, 2003, at the age of 18 days; the page of Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange, was created on December 9, 2003.
Lady Louise Windsor, probably, gained the all-time leadership the following year (2004), as her page was much more viewed during the years we have data (December 2007–present).
By the end of 2016, she was 4th in the multiyear list. Lady Louise Windsor was, probably, overcome in 2010 by Willow Smith—the undisputed leader of the 2010s. The page of Willow
Smith was created on April 23, 2005 (year and a half after Lady Louise Windsor's). During 2008–2009 the two had similar number of views, while in 2010 Willow Smith counted an
extraordinary number of 3,100,000 views.[29] By August 31, 2016, she had total 12 million views, nearly three times more than the closest contender, Jackie Evancho.
In July 2019, Willow Smith was synchronously surpassed by two people, Billie Eilish and Millie Bobby Brown, after leading over 100 months. Billie Eilish was the first to surpass Smith.
On 7/24/2019 Millie Bobby Brown passed Billie Eilish in page views, and held the lead until 7/26/2019. She regained the title on 7/29/2019 and held it until 7/31/2019, and Billie EIlish
has held it ever since.[30][31]
The undisputed leader of the year 2019 was Billie Eilish. She began the year on the 22nd place and gained the all time lead in July. For 2019, she was the most viewed among living
people of all ages and her page was 10th in the general ranking.[32]
In the 2010s, the hereditary princes were gradually overtaken by the "princes" of music and movies.
The first sportsperson to make this list was artistic gymnast Laurie Hernandez. She entered the list in August 2016, peaked at the 19th rank by the end of the year and dropped from the
list in June 2018. She was followed and surpassed by LaMelo Ball in December 2017. LaMelo was joined and surpassed by his colleague, Zion Williamson, in 2019 (14th rank as of
March 2021, the highest a millennial athlete ever rose).
The forth athlete and the first footballer on the list became Erling Haaland in 2020, followed by his teammate Jadon Sancho the same year. In September 2021 Emma Raducanu
became the first tennis player on the list.
-*The approximate number of views each person had when she became Wikipedia’s most-viewed millennial.
-***Millie Bobby Brown held the leadership for 4 days in July 2019.[33]
Music bands
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2021).
Sport teams
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2021).
The list is overwhelmingly dominated by association football teams. Notable among American sports teams is the Golden State Warriors, whose page views came heavily from 2016–
2019.
TV series clearly has the upper hand to film, for the most part.
Albums
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2021).
Singles
(December 1, 2007 – January 1, 2021).
Naruto is classified as a TV series (above) as it is more popular as an anime, and there is no separate page for the manga. Books with film/TV adaptations are listed below, as many of
the links below are franchise pages. Note that A Song of Ice and Fire's popularity is considerably outstripped by that of its TV adaptation Game of Thrones.
This list includes books and texts composed before 1500 AD.
It has been widely argued that Bible is the all time best seller, followed by Quran.[34] The perspective below however reveals a more popular ancient text.
-*In 2019–20, Bible logged large number of automated desktop views. The over 95% disparity between desktop and mobile views is, in the opinion of experts,[35] a clear indication of
“non-human views” (divine views in the case?). For this reason, the number of views here excludes the desktop views for 2019 and 2020. Basing on the Bible traffic before the “divine
intervention,” (7 to 10 correlation between desktop and mobile respectively views) the correct number of views for Bible is probably 20.
See also
Did you know/Statistics
Lists of popular pages by WikiProject
Most popular pages October 2001
Popular pages
2003: Oct.
2004: Mar. through Sep.
2008: May.
Most read articles in 2008
Most read articles in 2009
Most read articles in 2010
Top 25 Report
Zeitgeist 2008-2013
Popular pages by Andrew West for 2013, 2014, 2015,2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Popular pages by Andrew West for the past week
References
1. ^ Ethan Wolff-Mann, a former Deputy Editor of Supercompressor, Thrilist, 14. ^ User:West.andrew.g/2015 Popular pages
https://www.thrillist.com/tech/the-most-popular-articles-on-wikipedia-in-august-2014 15. ^ User:West.andrew.g/2016 Popular pages
2. ^ The engine allows to chart pages by categories and rank pages by views, links, or 16. ^ User:West.andrew.g/2017 Popular pages
combination of both ("harmonic centrality"). "The Open Wikipedia Ranking," 17. ^ User:West.andrew.g/2018 Popular pages
http://wikirank.di.unimi.it/faq.html 18. ^ List of most viewed YouTube videos.
3. ^ "The 10 Most Popular Wikipedia Pages of All Time," http://heavy.com/social/2013/05/10- 19. ^ "All-time" in this case means 16 days. stats.wikimedia.org: ZeitGeist .
most-popular-wikipedia-pages-ever/ 20. ^ The page was renamed twice and each time began new count. Here the lost views are
4. ^ “Wikipedia’s most searched articles of the year revealed,” ‘’BBC news’’, included. The original title was Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak and then 2019-20 Coronavirus
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20858333 pandemic.
5. ^ Most visited Wikipedia articles by language in 2015," Pewresearch, 21. ^ Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-02-04/Special report.
http://www.pewresearch.org/2016/01/14/wikipedia-top-10/ 22. ^ 2 Samuel 1:19, 24.
6. ^ "The top-viewed Wikipedia page for every day of 2014," Quartz, http://qz.com/322155/the- 23. ^ User:West.andrew.g/2015 Popular pages
top-viewed-wikipedia-page-for-every-day-of-2014/ 24. ^ http://wikirank-2019.di.unimi.it/?search=human&type=harmonic&pageSize=10
7. ^ "The Most Popular Pages on Wikipedia in 2012: Facebook, One Direction and … Cul De 25. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Living_people
Sacs?" AllthingsD.com, http://allthingsd.com/20121227/the-most-popular-pages-on-wikipedia-
26. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:21st-century_deaths
in-2012-facebook-one-direction-and-cul-de-sacs/
27. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:20th-century_deaths
8. ^ "Wikipedia's Most Popular Pages, in 35 Languages," Citylab,
28. ^ Wikipedia categories for people born by period (year/decade/century/millennium) counted
http://www.citylab.com/tech/2012/12/wikipedias-most-popular-pages-35-languages/4281/
by the massview tool, https://pageviews.toolforge.org/massviews/
9. ^ John R. Quain, "What I learned from Wikipedia's most popular articles of 2012,"
29. ^ http://wikipediaviews.org/displayviewsformultipleyears.php
FoxNews.com, January 02, 2013, http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/01/02/what-learned-
30. ^ "Billie Eilish Pageviews Analysis" . WMF Labs.
from-wikipedia-most-popular-articles-2012.html \
31. ^ "Millie Bobby Brown Pageviews Analysis" . WMF Labs.
10. ^ "The Top 100 Most Viewed Articles on Wikipedia During 2013," InfoDocket Library Journal,
32. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:West.andrew.g/2019_Popular_pages
http://www.infodocket.com/2013/12/31/the-top-100-most-viewed-articles-on-wikipedia-during-
33. ^ See references 30 and 31
2013/
34. ^ "guinnessworldrecords""Best selling book of non-fiction" . Guinness World Records.
11. ^ "Wikipedia's most-viewed articles in 2012 were..." CNet,
Archived from the original on 15 March 2015. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
http://www.cnet.com/news/wikipedias-most-viewed-articles-in-2012-were/
35. ^ Wikipedia:Top 25 Report; User:Igordebraga; User:Kingsif.
12. ^ https://tools.wmflabs.org/massviews/
13. ^ http://wikipediaviews.org/displayviewsformultipleyears.php
External links
ZeitGeist (stats.wikimedia.org)
Wikipedia Trends at WikiShark
The Open Wikipedia Ranking (2015–2021)
Massviews Analysis (pageviews.toolforge.org)
The 50 most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2009 and 2008 (The Daily Telegraph)
Categories: Wikipedia history Wikipedia pageviews Wikipedia statistics Articles Lists of Internet-related superlatives
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