The most popular Wikipedia pages of 2024
Millions of people on the internet turn to Wikipedia
By John Towfighi, CNN
(CNN) — 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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
A page about Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota and vice-presidential candidate, did not appear in the top 25. But the data shows that he would have been 27th had the list been extended.
While US politics was a notable search subject, popular culture had the largest share of the top 25.
The fourth most-visited page was about Lyle and Erik Menendez, the brothers who were sentenced to life in prison for the 1989 murder of their parents and are now facing a resentencing trial. The case received renewed public attention after a Netflix documentary was published this year. The Wikipedia page about the brothers received over 26 million views in 2024.
The “Deadpool & Wolverine” and “Dune: Part Two” movies were eighth and 23rd, respectively. In 2023, the movies “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” were in the top 25.
Griselda Blanco, a Colombian drug trafficker known as the “Queen of Cocaine,” had a peak in views after a Netflix miniseries about her life was released this year, and her page received nearly 13.5 million views across the year.
People also read up on celebrities throughout the year. Swift came in at 11th, down from ninth most-visited in 2023 when she first appeared on the list. The pop star completes her worldwide Eras Tour on December 8.
Sean “Diddy” Combs made the top 25, as the rapper and music producer faces more than 30 civil lawsuits that include charges of sexual trafficking and racketeering.
And the page about Liam Payne, the One Direction musician who died on October 16, garnered over 12 million views. His death sparked an outpouring of grief from fans, drawing crowds that gathered at vigils around the world to mourn the British pop star.
Indian politics and culture were also among top searches on Wikipedia.
“Wikipedia readers in India continue to make a big impact on the list, a trend we saw in 2023 as well,” Wikimedia Foundation’s Alikhan said.
The Indian Premier League, a cricket league in India, garnered over 24.5 million views this year as the site’s sixth most visited page. The topic was the fourth most visited page in 2023, the first year it appeared on the list.
The Indian general election also made the top 10. In June, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi was reelected in the country’s general election. The page about the election saw a peak of 1.2 million views on June 4, when the voting results were announced, and gained over 18 million views during the year.
Bollywood movie “Kalki 2898 AD” saw 14.6 million views across the year, earning a spot in the top 25. In 2023, two Bollywood movies appeared on the top 25 list.
The 2024 Summer Olympics, the UEFA Euro championship and Cristiano Ronaldo were also included in the top 25.
Wikipedia launched in 2001 and is maintained by over 260,000 volunteer editors. There were over 31 million edits to the site in 2024 and almost 3.5 billion bytes of information were added, according to the Wikimedia Foundation.
The editors who compiled the list screened for spam, bots and other inaccuracies that could disrupt the tally of page views, according to the Wikimedia Foundation. The list used data pulled on November 22, and the Wikimedia Foundation will update the final list in January.
The top 25 most viewed Wikipedia pages of 2024, ranked by page views:
1. Deaths in 2024, 44,440,344 pageviews
2. Kamala Harris, 28,960,278
3. 2024 United States presidential election, 27,910,346
4. Lyle and Erik Menendez, 26,126,811
5. Donald Trump, 25,293,855
6. Indian Premier League, 24,560,689
7. JD Vance, 23,303,160
8. “Deadpool & Wolverine,” 22,362,102
9. Project 2025, 19,741,623
10. 2024 Indian general election, 18,149,666
11. Taylor Swift, 17,089,827
12. ChatGPT, 16,595,350
13. 2020 United States presidential election, 16,351,730
14. 2024 Summer Olympics, 16,061,381
15. UEFA Euro 2024, 15,680,913
16. United States, 15,657,243
17. Elon Musk, 15,535,053
18. “Kalki 2898 AD,” 14,588,383
19. Joe Biden, 14,536,522
20. Cristiano Ronaldo, 13,698,372
21. Griselda Blanco, 13,491,792
22. Sean Combs, 13,112,437
23. “Dune: Part Two,” 12,788,834
24. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 12,375,410
25. Liam Payne, 12,087,141
The-CNN-Wire
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