Wikipedia is a project to build free encyclopedias in all languages of the world. Virtually anyone is free to contribute.

The project started in January 2001 in one language, English, and currently has over 3,300,000 articles in over 125 languages. The largest Wikipedia is in the English language, with over 1,000,000 articles; then come the German, French, Polish and Japanese editions, with over 175,000 articles each. 80 other languages have at least 1,000 articles. New language editions are proposed and launched every month.

Since the start of the project, over 100,000 registered users have made at least ten edits. It is unknown how many users have registered on multiple projects at once. The total number of accounts created on the English Wikipedia alone exceeds 1,000,000.

Some Wikipedias release or plan to release regular snapshots. The German Wikipedia is released twice a year as a DVD, in collaboration with Directmedia Publishing.

(Source: Wikimedia Foundation)

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