The 50 most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2009 and 2008

The article about The Beatles on the English version of Wikipedia is the second most viewed entry in 2009 to date.

The 50 most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2009 and 2008
Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers’ from around the world and has approximately 10 million registered users. All a person needs is internet access in order to create or edit an article.
However, in the article detailing Wikipedia’s history, the organisation does highlight that older articles “tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles more frequently contain significant misinformation, unenyclopedia content or vandalism”. Users are warned to be aware of this in order to obtain valid information and avoid misinformation.

The site has dramatically changed how people search for information online and boasts 13 million articles in total, when you count the versions in the other 271 languages.

Previously the Yongle Encyclopedia was the world’s largest encyclopedia, which was commissioned by the Chinese Ming Dynasty emperor, Yongle, in 1402 and completed by 1408.

Here, we round up this year's most-viewed Wikipedia articles, according to the website Wikistics:

1) Wiki (131,383 page hits per day)

2) The Beatles (111,896)

3) Michael Jackson (79,734)

4) Favicon.ico (78,077)

5) YouTube (72,318)

6) Wikipedia (52,542)

7) Barack Obama (49,401)

8) Deaths in 2009 (48,758)

9) United States (46,545)

10) Facebook (42,679)

11) Current events portal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events] (40,962)

12) World War II (29,736)

13) Twitter (28,511)

14) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (28,395)

15) Slumdog Millionaire (26,755)

16) Lil Wayne (26,210)

17) Adolf Hitler (25,481)

18) India (25,380)

19) Transformers 2 (24,842)

20) Scrubs (TV series) (24,758)

21) Sex (24,754)

22) Rhianna (24,670)

23) United Kingdom (24,300)

24) Abrham Lincoln (23,743)

25) Heroes (TV series) (23,569)

26) Watchmen (film) (23,544)

27) Lady GaGa (23,376)

28) Star Trek (film) (22,990)

29) 2009 Swine Flu outbreak (22,968)

30) Featured content portal (22,829)

31) Megan Fox (22,573)

32) Naruto (22,573)

33) Australia (22,544)

34) Canada (22,437)

35) World War I (22,307)

36) Vagina (22,295)

37) List of House episodes (21,950)

38) Japan (21,797)

39) Martin Luther King Jr (21,786)

40) Miley Cyrus (21,724)

41) Robert Pattinson (21,515)

42) Deadpool (comics) (21,264)

43) Twilight (2008 film) (21,158)

44) Windows 7 (21,018)

45) House (TV series) (20,882)

46) Terminator Salvation (20,743)

47) Kristen Stewart (20,538)

48) Internet Movie Database (20,422)

49) 2012 (20,347)

50) X-Men Origins: Wolverine

The 50 most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2008

1) Wiki (140,550 page hits per day)

2) YouTube (91,971)

3) Barack Obama (76,624)

4) Sarah Palin (64,465)

5) Facebook (51,760)

6) Wikipedia (49,945)

7) The Dark Knight (film) (49,141)

8) Current events portal (42,401)

9) Deaths in 2008 (41,586)

10) United States (40,672)

11) Sex (40,141)

12) MySpace (37,256)

13) John McCain (34,486)

14) Beatles (32,359)

15) 2008 Summer Olympics (28,627)

16) Naruto (28,491)

17) Heroes (TV series) (28,237)

18) The Beatles (27,386)

19) Large Hadron Collider (27,234)

20) Hotmail (27,221)

21) Google (25,738)

22) Lil Wayne (24,366)

23) Featured content portal (23,815) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Featured_content]

24) Batman (23,093)

25) Joe Biden (22,600)

26) India (22,328)

27) Miley Cyrus (22,095)

28) United States presidential election 2008 (21,405)

29) Michael Phelps (21,279)

30) George W Bush (21,107)

31) World War II (21,020)

32) Vagina (20,634)

33) Jonas Brothers (20,379)

34) Joker (comics) (20,082)

35) Canada (20,014)

36) Penis (19,773)

37) Rhianna (19,766)

38) Metallica (19,732)

39) Internet Movie Database (19,673)

40) United Kingdom (19,472)

41) New York City (19,440)

42) Heath Ledger (19,260)

43) Australia (18,849)

44) Japan (18,304)

45) Masturbation (18,189)

46) Twilight (2008 film) (18,066)

47) Search (18,010)

48) China (17,803)

49) Global warming (17,577)

50) Lost (TV series) (17,554)

source: telegraph

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