Wikipedia has revealed its most-read pages for 2023 – and it includes a variety of topics and personalities people were curious about.
The English version of the online encyclopedia received more than 84 billion views, with technology, sports, films, current affairs and celebrities featuring in this year’s top 25 articles.
OpenAI’s virtual chatbot ChatGPT – which has seen a surge in popularity this year and celebrated its first birthday last month – took the top spot with more than 49 million views.
The second most-read article was the annual list of deaths, which sees high traffic every year.
Individual entries for notable figures who died also garnered significant interest this year, including pages for Matthew Perry and Lisa Marie Presley.
Celebrities including pop star Taylor Swift (12th place with 19 million views) – who was announced as Time’s Person of the Year, tech entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk (19th place with more than 14 million views) and controversial influencer Andrew Tate (25th places with more than 12 million views) also made it into the list.
The highly anticipated 2023 Cricket World Cup in India – which the hosts lost to Australia in the final – took third place.
It is the first time on record cricket content has made the list since the non-profit organisation Wikimedia Foundation started tracking page views in 2015.
Three other cricket-related entries made the cut, including the Indian Premier League which ranked fourth place with more than 20 million views.
Themes in the top 25 also included cinematic searches, with summer blockbusters Oppenheimer, Barbie and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 making the list.
The page about the physicist J Robert Oppenheimer himself received more than 25 million views.
India’s Bollywood action movies – Jawan and Pathaan – were also among the most-viewed pages.
Sports personalities such as footballers Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi also made the list.
This year’s top 25 articles on English Wikipedia:
• ChatGPT – 49,490,406 page views
• Deaths in 2023 – 42,666,860 page views
• 2023 Cricket World Cup – 38,171,653 page views
• Indian Premier League – 32,012,810 page views
• Oppenheimer (film) – 28,348,248 page views
• Cricket World Cup – 25,961,417 page views
• J Robert Oppenheimer – 25,672,469 page views
• Jawan (film) – 21,791,126 page views
• 2023 Indian Premier League – 20,694,974 page views
• Pathaan (film) – 19,932,509 page views
• The Last of Us (TV series) – 19,791,789 page views
• Taylor Swift – 19,418,385: page views
• Barbie (film) – 18,051,077 page views
• Cristiano Ronaldo – 17,492,537 page views
• Lionel Messi – 16,623,630 page views
• Premier League – 16,604,669 page views
• Matthew Perry – 16,454,666 page views
• United States – 16,240,461 page views
• Elon Musk – 14,370,395 page views
• Avatar: The Way of Water – 14,303,116 page views
• India – 13,850,178 page views
• Lisa Marie Presley – 13,764,007 page views
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – 13,392,917 page views
• Russian invasion of Ukraine – 12,798,866 page views
• Andrew Tate – 12,728,616 page views
