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Wikipedia:Contents
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Main page Contents · Overviews · Outlines · Lists · Portals · Glossaries · Categories · Indices · A–Z index
Contents Reference · Culture · Geography · Health · History · Human activities · Mathematics · Nature · People ·
Current events Philosophy · Religion · Society · Technology
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2 Main subject classifications
What links here Featured content represents the best of Wikipedia, 3 Curated article collections
Related changes and has undergone a thorough review process to 4 Third-party classification systems
Special pages
ensure that it meets the highest encyclopedic 5 Reference collections
Permanent link
standards. Presented by type: 6 Special format collections
Page information
Wikidata item Featured articles · Featured lists · Featured pictures · Featured 7 Collections of articles

topics
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Printable version Main subject classifications
Wikipedia's main navigation subsystems (overviews, outlines, lists, portals, glossaries, categories, and
In other projects
indices) are each divided into the following subject classifications:
Wikiversity
Reference works – compendiums of information, usually of a specific type, compiled in a book for
Languages
ease of reference. That is, the information is intended to be quickly found when needed.
‫العربية‬ Culture – encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the
বাংলা
knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities and habits of the individuals in these groups.
Español
Geography – field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and
िहन्दी
Bahasa Indonesia phenomena of the Earth and planets.
Bahasa Melayu Health – state of physical, mental and social well-being.
Português History – the past as it is described in written documents, and the study thereof.
Русский
Human activities – the various activities done by people. For instance, it includes leisure,
中⽂
entertainment, industry, recreation, war, and exercise.
34 more Mathematics – the study of topics such as quantity (numbers), structure, space, and change. It
Edit links evolved through the use of abstraction and logical reasoning, from counting, calculation,
measurement, and the systematic study of the shapes and motions of physical objects.
Natural science – branch of science concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding
of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation.
People – plurality of persons considered as a whole, as is the case with an ethnic group or nation.
Philosophy – study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values,
reason, mind, and language.
Religions – social-cultural systems of designated behaviors and practices, morals, worldviews,
texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural,
transcendental, or spiritual elements.
Society – group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group
sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority
and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social
relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may
be described as the sum/total of such relationships among its constituent of members.
Technology – the sum of techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in the production of
goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation.

Curated article collections

Overview articles
Overview articles summarize in prose a broad topic like biology, and also have illustrations and links
to subtopics like cell biology, biographies like Carl Linnaeus, and other related articles like Human
Genome Project.

Wikipedia:Contents/Overviews lists overview articles from covered fields in a single page.

Outline pages
Outline pages have trees of topics in an outline format, which in turn are linked to further outlines and
articles providing more detail. Outlines show how important subtopics relate to each other based on
how they are arranged in the tree, and they are useful as a more condensed, non-prose alternative to
overview articles.

Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines is a comprehensive list of "Outline of __" pages, organized by

subject. It is itself an outline, that links (almost) exclusively to other outlines.
Outline of academic disciplines covers subjects studied in college or university and provides links
to prose overview articles and their corresponding outlines.
Outline of knowledge is the top-level outline, its subject being the broadest one of all. It is the
ancestor of all other outlines, and they branch out from it, in successive levels.

List of articles every Wikipedia should have

Main article: meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have

These articles are considered the foundation that every Wikipedia should build upon.

meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have - 1,000 most important articles
meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have/Expanded - 10,000 most important articles

Vital articles
Main page: Wikipedia:Vital articles

Vital articles are lists of subjects for which the English Wikipedia should have corresponding high-
quality articles. They serve as centralized watchlists to track the quality status of Wikipedia's most
important articles and to give editors guidance on which articles to prioritize for improvement.

Vital articles level 1 – 10 most important articles

Vital articles level 2 – 100 most important articles
Vital articles level 3 – 1,000 most important articles
Vital articles level 4 – 10,000 most important articles
Vital articles level 5 – 50,000 most important articles

Vital people
Main page: Wikipedia:Vital people

Vital people are lists of biographies for which the English Wikipedia should have corresponding high-
quality articles. They serve as centralized watchlists to track the quality status of Wikipedia's most
important articles and to give editors guidance on which articles to prioritize for improvement.

Vital people level 1 – 50 most important people

Vital people level 2 – 100 most important people
Vital people level 3 – 500 most important people
Vital people level 4 – 5,000 most important people
Vital people level 5 – 15,000 most important people

Third-party classification systems

Various third-party classification systems have been mapped to Wikipedia articles, which can be
accessed from these pages:

Library of Congress Classification

List of Dewey Decimal classes
Figurative system of human knowledge (Encyclopédie)
Outline of Roget's Thesaurus
Propædia (Encyclopædia Britannica)
Tree of knowledge system
Universal Decimal Classification

Reference collections
Wikipedia has several types of pages which provide content in a non-prose form, for reference
purposes.

List pages
List pages enumerate items of a particular type, such as the List of sovereign states or List of South
Africans. Wikipedia has "lists of lists" when there are too many items to fit on a single page, when the
items can be sorted in different ways, or as a way of navigating lists on a topic (for example Lists of
countries and territories or Lists of people). There are several ways to find lists:

Wikipedia:Contents/Lists – A limited single-page collection of lists and lists of lists

List of lists of lists – A broad single-page collection of lists of lists
Category:Lists – Browse lists comprehensively via the multi-page Wikipedia category system

Timelines
Timelines list events chronologically, sometimes including links to articles with more detail. There are
several ways to find timelines:

List of timelines has a long single-page collection

Category:Wikipedia timelines has a comprehensive multi-page collection via the Wikipedia
category system

Of particular interest may be:

List of centuries
List of decades
List of historical anniversaries – e.g. events on January 1 of any year
Category:Graphical timelines – graphical timelines in the category and subcategories, arranged
alphabetically

Glossaries
Glossaries are lists of terms with definitions. Wikipedia includes hundreds of alphabetical glossaries;
they can be found two ways:

Wikipedia:Contents/Glossaries – A single-page list of glossaries

Category:Wikipedia glossaries – Browse glossaries comprehensively via the Wikipedia category
system

Bibliographies
Bibliographies list sources on a given topic, for verification or further reading outside Wikipedia:

Wikipedia:List of bibliographies is a list of bibliographies

Category:Wikipedia bibliographies has a complete multi-page listing of bibliographies on Wikipedia

Category:Discographies
Discographies catalog the sound recordings of individual artists or groups.

Category:Discographies has a complete multi-page listing

Special format collections

Portals
Portals contain featured articles and images, news, categories, excerpts of key articles, links to related
portals, and to-do lists for editors. There are two ways to find portals:

Wikipedia:Contents/Portals – A single-page list of portals

Category:Portals – Browse portals comprehensively via the Wikipedia category system.

Spoken articles
Growing collections of Wikipedia articles are starting to become available as spoken word recordings
as well.

Category:Spoken articles – an organized list of all spoken articles

Wikipedia:Spoken articles – some general information about the spoken article technology

Collections of articles
Category system
Wikipedia's collection of category pages is a classified index system. It is automatically generated
from category tags at the bottoms of articles and most other pages. Nearly all of the articles available
so far on the website can be found through these subject indexes.

If you are simply looking to browse articles by topic, there are three top-level pages to choose from:

Category:Main topic classifications – probably what you are looking for: Arts, History, Technology,
etc.
Wikipedia:Contents/Categories – a hand-crafted list of first- and second-level topic categories

For biographies, see Category:People.

Category:Contents is technically at the top of the category hierarchy, but contains many categories
useful to editors but not readers. Special:Categories lists every category alphabetically.

Alphabetical lists of articles

Wikipedia's alphabetical article indexes

Special:Allpages lists all of the current pages in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia:Contents/A–Z index provides an easy way to skip to a particular part of the alphabet in
the list of all articles.
Lists of alphabetical indexes
Category:Wikipedia indexes – alphabetical list of topic indexes
Wikipedia:Contents/Indices – indexes sorted by topic area

Current history entries

You can help us keep Wikipedia up to date! The list below is for encyclopedia entries that describe
and pertain to events happening on a current basis.

2021 – major events this year

2021 in politics and government – major current political news and developments
2021 in science and technology – major current news on science findings and technology
developments
Portal:Current events – featured current events and related project activities
Category:2021-related timelines
Category:2021 by country
Deaths in 2021 – lists people who died this year
Category:Contemporary history by country

Content listings
Types

Overviews · Featured content · Outlines · Lists · Portals · Glossaries · Categories · Indices · Spoken
articles

Topics

Current events · Reference · Culture · Geography · Health · History · Mathematics · Nature · People ·
Philosophy · Religion · Society · Technology

Places, people and times

Academic disciplines · Anniversaries (today) · Countries and territories · Timelines (decades,

centuries, and millennia)

Indices

A–Z index · Categories · Dewey Decimal classes · Library of Congress Classification

Categories: Wikipedia directories Wikipedia contents Wikipedia navigation

This page was last edited on 4 August 2021, at 15:47 (UTC).

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