Since the start of COVID-19, a dedicated global network of volunteers has been creating, updating, and translating Wikipedia articles with vital information about the pandemic. These articles have been viewed more than 579 million times by people around the world. Explore the data to see how people are using Wikipedia to share and find reliable information during this unprecedented time. The data below are for strongly-related COVID-19 articles only.[1]
6,950 Wikipedia Articles
have been created about COVID-19
Many of the volunteer editors who create, review, and improve Wikipedia articles about COVID-19 have professional expertise in medicine and science. They often collaborate through groups such as WikiProject Medicine and a new offshoot specifically dedicated to the pandemic, WikiProject COVID-19. In India, a group of volunteers is sharing reliable, unbiased COVID-19 information on Wikipedia in several Indian languages. A new branch of WikiProject Medicine called SWASTHA (the Sanskrit word for health) has also been established, as well as a WikiProject India COVID-19 task force, which is creating and updating a database related to the coronavirus pandemic in India through Wikidata.
188 Languages
in which COVID-19 articles exist
983,395 Edits
in total have been made to COVID-19 articles, an average of 110 edits per hour since December 2019
97,088 Editors
have contributed to COVID-19 articles [2]
Data from December 1, 2019 - December 8, 2020
579,190,316 Pageviews
of COVID-19 articles from around the world over time
Views of Wikipedia articles about COVID-19 often reflect major developments in the timeline of the pandemic. For example, on March 12, 2020, the day after the World Health Organization (WHO) classified COVID-19 as a pandemic, the main English Wikipedia article about the pandemic had over 1.4 million views alone, an increase of 73 percent from the day before the WHO’s announcement.[3]
Data from December 1, 2019 - December 8, 2020. Line chart data from December 1, 2019 - October 12, 2020.
In depth
A look at the main "COVID-19 pandemic" English article
185 Wikipedia entries redirect to this article
Languages
This article is available in 141 languages
Total Pageviews
This article has been viewed 82,732,008 times
Daily Pageviews
On average, this article has received 241,201 pageviews every day since January 1, 2020
Data from January 1, 2020 - December 8, 2020
COVID-19 content by language
Every Wikipedia language edition is unique
Wikipedia articles about COVID-19 exist in over 170 languages, serving as a source of reliable information for people around the world.
Here, you can see the 15 language editions of Wikipedia with the most pageviews[4], ranging from English Wikipedia, with over 333 million views, to two and a half million views on Dutch Wikipedia. You can compare these pageviews with the number of editors who are contributing to a given language edition and how many articles they’ve created. When viewed together, these variables show the intersection of audience interest (pageviews), content accessibility (articles), and volunteer capacity (editors). Interesting insights emerge.
For example, the 63 COVID-19 articles on Japanese Wikipedia have garnered over 12 million views, suggesting there’s a high level of interest among Japanese-readers compared to the lower number of COVID-19 articles on the Japanese Wikipedia. And, although Wikipedia is currently blocked in China, the Chinese language edition of Wikipedia shows high numbers across all three categories: editors who want to share their knowledge on COVID-19, content volume, and interest from Chinese-readers.
Data from December 1, 2019 - October 12, 2020
Use this data
Data from Wikimedia projects are open to anyone and are already being used by entities such as Google, Mozilla, and governments to share information about the pandemic. Please contact us at partnerships@wikimedia.org if you need support using our data or would like to collaborate.
Learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation’s response to COVID-19.
References
[1] Strongly-related Wikipedia articles include all COVID-19 related pages except for the human-related ones (e.g. Tom Hanks). See the methodology for culling this list of articles here. There are 6,950 strongly-related COVID-19 Wikipedia articles as of December 8, 2020.
[2] This statistic reflects the sum of both registered and unregistered Wikipedia editors.
[3] The WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. On March 10, 2020, the main English pandemic article had 810,573 views, compared to 1,403,079 views on March 12, 2020 (see data here).
[4] These data reflect total pageviews, which could include inflated views from bots. Learn more about pageviews from bots.
*Sources: New York Times; Axios; United Nations; The Wall Street Journal; World Health Organization
Contact us
Follow
Help us unlock the world’s knowledge.
As a nonprofit, Wikipedia and our related free knowledge projects are powered primarily through donations.
Donate nowPhoto credits
MGalloway (WMF) (WMF User Experience Design group)
WMF User Experience Design group
MIT License