This year, more than 70,000 volunteers added 5 million articles to Wikipedia, and more than 1 billion devices visited our sites—every month—to read them. Learn more about our impact →

Consider the facts
Half of refugees are school-age

That means 10 million children are away from their homes, their communities, and their traditional education. Read more →
2016 was the hottest year on record

Sixteen of the seventeen warmest years on record have occurred since 2001. Read more →
Wikipedia is updated almost 350 times a minute

Wikipedia is updated constantly—from breaking news stories to ancient history. Read more →
There are more than 1,650 languages spoken in India

Of the ten most-spoken languages in the world, three are Indic. Read more →
Only 17% of Wikipedia’s biographies are about women

We think that number should be much, much higher. Read more →
More than 1 trillion photos were taken in 2016

Since 2010, the amount of photographs captured around the world has tripled. Read more →
Most Wikipedia articles are in languages other than English

Eighty-seven percent to be exact. From Abkhaz to Zulu, along with 281 more. Read more →
One in six people visited another country in 2016

More than 1.2 billion people increased their knowledge and understanding of new cultures by visiting another country. Read more →
‘OK’ is the most widely understood word, globally

According to Wikipedia, OK “denotes approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, or acknowledgment.” Read more →
239 million people used the internet for the first time in 2016

It is estimated that 61% of the world does not have access to the internet. Read more →

large group of people
Wikimania 2016 group photo. Photo by Niccolò Caranti. CC BY-SA 4.0
We received 5.4 million donations last year

Your gift helps us stay independent.

See all facts

Providing context amid complexity

What we stand for

Wikipedia was born of an impossible idea: that every single human could share in the sum of all knowledge. Read more →

Katherine Maher
Katherine Maher Executive Director of The Wikimedia Foundation

A Letter from Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia is now 16 years old. People entering university today have never known a world without Wikipedia. It has existed from the time they first started learning to read. Read more →

Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales Founder of Wikipedia