What were Wikipedia’s most searched topics in 2023?

What were Wikipedia’s most searched topics in 2023? - Copyright Canva - AP Photo/ Rafiq Maqbool / Evan Agostini - Universal Pictures

By David Mouriquand

Published on 06/12/2023 - 10:54•Updated 21/12/2023 - 11:36

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Can you guess which was the most searched topic on Wikipedia this year?

Millions around the world turn to Wikipedia to better understand the world around them, and each year, the free online encyclopedia releases data rounding up the year’s most searched topics.

And the most popular article in 2023 was about... ChatGPT – with nearly 50 million pageviews.

Yes, there’s seemingly no escaping the AI chatbot these days.

Since its launch just over a year ago, OpenAI's ChatGPT has skyrocketed into the public's consciousness.

The chatbot has also contributed to growing debates about the promise and potential dangers of generative AI, and its threat to the cultural world.

There's also a sizeable irony to this year's top spot...

“ChatGPT is one of the generative AI tools that is trained on Wikipedia data, pulling large amounts of content from Wikipedia projects to answer people's questions,” said Anusha Alikhan, chief communications officer at the Wikimedia Foundation. “So, the fact that millions of people are going to Wikipedia to learn about ChatGPT is kind of an interesting twist.”

The second most-read article on Wikipedia in 2023 was the annual list of deaths, which sees high traffic year after year. Individual entries for notable figures who passed away also garnered significant interest this year, including pages for Matthew Perry and Lisa Marie Presley.

English Wikipedia raked in more than 84 billion views this year, according to numbers released by the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit behind the free, publicly edited online encyclopedia.

Here are this year's top 25 articles on English Wikipedia:

1. ChatGPT: 49,490,406 pageviews

2. Deaths in 2023: 42,666,860 pageviews

3. 2023 Cricket World Cup: 38,171,653 pageviews

4. Indian Premier League: 32,012,810 pageviews

5. Oppenheimer (film): 28,348,248 pageviews

6. Cricket World Cup: 25,961,417 pageviews

7. J. Robert Oppenheimer: 25,672,469 pageviews

8. Jawan (film): 21,791,126 pageviews

9. 2023 Indian Premier League: 20,694,974 pageviews

10. Pathaan (film): 19,932,509 pageviews

11. The Last of Us (TV series): 19,791,789 pageviews

12. Taylor Swift: 19,418,385: pageviews

13. Barbie (film): 18,051,077 pageviews

14. Cristiano Ronaldo: 17,492,537 pageviews

15. Lionel Messi: 16,623,630 pageviews

16. Premier League: 16,604,669 pageviews

17. Matthew Perry: 16,454,666 pageviews

18. United States: 16,240,461 pageviews

19. Elon Musk: 14,370,395 pageviews

20. Avatar: The Way of Water: 14,303,116 pageviews

21. India: 13,850,178 pageviews

22. Lisa Marie Presley: 13,764,007 pageviews

23. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: 13,392,917 pageviews

24. Russian invasion of Ukraine: 12,798,866 pageviews

25. Andrew Tate: 12,728,616 pageviews

According to the Wikimedia Foundation, this top 25 list was created using data as of 28 November. Numbers for the full year are set to be updated by the nonprofit on 3 January 2024.

The top countries that accessed English Wikipedia overall to date in 2023 are the US (33.2 billion) and the UK (9 billion) — followed by India (8.48 billion), Canada (3.95 billion) and Australia (2.56 billion).

The site was launched in January 2001. It describes itself as “a free-content online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, collectively known as Wikipedians.”

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