Initially only available in English, editions in other languages were quickly developed. Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, on January 15, 2001, it is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization that employed a staff of over 700 people by October 2023.
It has been ranked consistently one of the 10 most popular websites in the world, ranks number 7th as the most visited website on the Internet, and, as of 2023, ranks as the 4th most viewed website by Semrush. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history.
Wikipedia is a free-content online encyclopedia, written and maintained by a community of volunteers, collectively known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the use of wiki-based editing system MediaWiki.
Most text is also dual-licensed under GFDL media licensing varies
