View source for Wiki143:Size comparisons

{{short description|Compares sizes of various encyclopedias}}
{{WikiStats}}

This article compares the size of [[Wikipedia]] with other [[encyclopedia]]s and information collections. 

Source material from which Wikipedia statistics in this article are derived is available;<ref>[http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/Sitemap.htm Source material for article]</ref> the ''Footnote on WikiStatistics'' section at the end of this page provides technical discussion of this article.

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== Wikipedia ==
[[File:Wikipedia printed size in volume using encyclopaedia britannica 2022.png|thumb|350px|left|An image estimating the size of a printed version of Wikipedia as of February 2022. ([[Wikipedia:Size in volumes|Up-to-date image]] using volumes of ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'')]]
Currently, the [[Main Page|English Wikipedia]] alone has over [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} articles]] of any length, and the combined Wikipedias for all other languages greatly exceed the English Wikipedia in size, giving more than '''29 billion words in 55 million articles in 309 languages'''.<ref name="wikistatsall">[http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaZZ.htm Wikipedia Statistics All languages] (11.9 billion words estimate from 6 billion in Nov 2009 plus 1 billion every 9 months)</ref> The English Wikipedia alone has over '''5 billion words''',<ref name="wikistatsen">[http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm Wikipedia Statistics English]</ref> and has [[User:Drbogdan/STATS|over '''95 times''']] as many words as the 120-volume English-language ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] (online),'' and more words than the enormous 119-volume Spanish-language ''[[Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana]]''. 

In 2005, the English-language Wikipedia more than doubled in size, and many smaller Wikipedias have grown by a higher multiple.

In June 2011, there were more than '''11 million''' articles in all Wikipedias and '''3.6 million''' in the English version.<ref name="wikistatsall" /><ref name="wikistatsen" />

Wikipedia is still in need of much [[:Category:All articles to be expanded|expansion]] and [[Wikipedia:Maintenance|improvement]]. Many of the articles are of poor quality and some mainstream encyclopedia topics are not covered adequately. In addition, the average article length is only a little over half the size of that in ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', although many major articles are considerably longer.{{cn}} Over time the balance of the editorial effort is expected to slowly tilt towards a greater emphasis on increasing the quality, scope, classification and interlinkage of existing articles. However, new articles will probably always be created in large numbers, as Wikipedia's conventions on acceptable article topics incorporate huge numbers of potential [[Special:Newpages|new articles]] every year (newly prominent people, current events, media products, physical products, etc.). In mid-2006, the rate of new article creation was still rising, but only slowly. {{As of|2007|1}}, it looked as if the rate of article creation may have peaked in mid-2006, though subsequent analysis may show otherwise. See [[Wikipedia:Modelling Wikipedia's growth]] for more on Wikipedia's growth rate and expected future size.

== Other online encyclopedic resources ==
There are many other online databases which combine several encyclopedias and [[encyclopedic dictionary|encyclopedic dictionaries]] and allow users to search all of the works simultaneously. One example is ''Oxford Reference Online''—a database of 221 encyclopedias and encyclopedic dictionaries, offering about 1.4 million articles {{as of|2011|lc=on}}, with expansions planned for the future.<ref>[http://www.oxfordreference.com/pages/premium Oxford Reference online]</ref> Another example is ''Xrefplus,'' which offers access to 262 encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference books.<ref>[http://www.xrefer.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=34 Xrefplus]</ref> This all added up to about 2.9 million entries when the database had 225 titles.<ref>[http://www.xrefer.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=60 Xrefer]</ref> There also is HighBeam Research and ''GaleNet''. ''GaleNet''—which is likely the largest named so far—offers users the ability to search several encyclopedia databases, including the ''Biography Resource Center'' (1,335,000 people), ''Gale Virtual Reference Library'' (594 reference books),<ref>[http://www.gale.com/tlist/gvrl_rt.xls Gale Virtual Reference Library]</ref> and the ''Science Resource Center'' (51 titles),<ref>[http://www.gale.com/tlist/SciRC_rt.xls Science Resource Center]</ref> among others.

== Paper encyclopedias ==

The largest paper encyclopedia ever produced is possibly the ''[[Yongle Encyclopedia]],'' completed in 1407 in 11,095 books, 370 million Chinese characters and commissioned by the [[Yongle Emperor]].<ref name="ebyongle">[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9078157/Yongle-dadian "Yongle dadian"]. ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''.</ref> The individual books that made up the encyclopedia were small by modern standards; the work was twelve times the size of the 20 million word French ''[[Encyclopédie]],''<ref>[http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:1QPVV0ySmOAJ:english.people.com.cn/200204/18/eng20020418_94330.shtml+China+to+Digitalize+World%27s+Earliest+Encyclopedia+Chinese+people%27s+daily&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1 Yongle Encyclopedia]</ref> giving 240 million words, or 21,600 words per book, although it is unclear if that is how it differs from the ''Encyclopédie'' in size. It is also unclear if it is twelve times larger than the original 28-volume version of the ''Encyclopédie'' completed in 1772 or the 35-volume version completed in 1780. The ''Yung-lo ta-tien'' was a collection of excerpts and entire existing works, rather than an original work. Only two copies were made and all that survives is a small fraction of one copy.

==Comparison of encyclopedias==
{{Further|Wikipedia:Statistics|Wikipedia:Size in volumes}}
Numbers regarding total characters are based on an estimated average word length of five, plus a space, or six characters per word.

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{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size:1.00em; line-height:1.5em;"
|-
|+ Encyclopedias by size
|-
! Encyclopedia
! Edition
! data-sort-type="number" | Articles<br />(thousands)
! data-sort-type="number" | Words<br />(millions)
! data-sort-type="number" | Est. characters<br />(millions)
! data-sort-type="number" | Average words<br />per article
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Wikipedia]]''
| style="text-align: left" | English
| style="text-align: right"| {{formatnum:{{#expr:{{Rounddown|{{NUMBEROF|articles|en}}|-4}}/1000}}}}+
| style="text-align: right"| 5,000+
| style="text-align: right"| 26,000+
| style="text-align: right"| 711
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Baike.com]]'' (formerly Hudong) (Chinese Wiki)
| style="text-align: left" | Nov 2009
| style="text-align: right"| 3,920+
| style="text-align: right"| 4,300+
| style="text-align: right"| —
| style="text-align: right"| 1,097
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Complete Library of the Four Treasuries]]'' ({{lang|zh-Hant|四庫全書}})<sup>*</sup>
| style="text-align: left" | 1782<sup>†</sup>
| style="text-align: right"| —
| colspan="2" style="text-align: center"| 800
| style="text-align: right| —
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Yongle Encyclopedia]]'' ({{lang|zh-Hant|永樂大典}}) <sup>*</sup>
| style="text-align: left" | 1403<sup>†</sup>
| style="text-align: right"| —
| colspan="2" style="text-align: center" | 370<ref>[http://www.itianjin.com/index.php/action/viewspace/itemid/4449 Yongle Encyclopedia]</ref> / 770<ref>[http://m0603.u-86.com/BBS/read-3889.htm Yongle Encyclopedia]</ref>
| style="text-align: right"| —
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana]]''
| style="text-align: left" | 1933
| style="text-align: right"| 1,000+<sup>‡</sup>
| style="text-align: right"| 200
| style="text-align: right"| 1,000
| style="text-align: right"| —
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China]]'' ({{lang|zh-Hant|古今圖書集成}})
| style="text-align: left" | 1725<sup>†</sup>
| style="text-align: right"| —
| colspan="2" style="text-align: center" | 100
| style="text-align: right"| —
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Encyclopedia of China]]'' ({{lang|zh-Hans|中国大百科全书}})
| style="text-align: left" | 1993
| style="text-align: right"| 80<sup></sup>
| colspan="2" style="text-align: center" | 126.4
| style="text-align: right"| 1,580
|-
| style="text-align: left" | [[Brockhaus Enzyklopädie|''Die Brockhaus Enzyklopädie'']] 
| style="text-align: left" | 2006
| style="text-align: right"| 300+
| style="text-align: right"| 33
| style="text-align: right"| ?
| style="text-align: right"| —
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Enciclopedia italiana]]''
| style="text-align: left" | 1939
| style="text-align: right"| 60<sup>§</sup>
| style="text-align: right"| 50
| style="text-align: right"| 247
| style="text-align: right"| 833
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Nationalencyklopedin]]''
| style="text-align: center"| —
| style="text-align: right" | 183<sup>**</sup>
| style="text-align: right" | —
| style="text-align: right" | —
| style="text-align: right" | —
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''
| style="text-align: left" | 2013
| style="text-align: right"| 40<ref>[http://store.britannica.com/products/043009100 Encyclopedia Britannica Store]</ref>
| style="text-align: right"| 44
| style="text-align: right"| —
| style="text-align: right"| 650
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''
| style="text-align: left" | Online
| style="text-align: right"| 120
| style="text-align: right"| 55
| style="text-align: right"| 300
| style="text-align: right"| 370
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Great Soviet Encyclopedia]]''
| style="text-align: left" | 1978
| style="text-align: right"| 100
| style="text-align: right"| 21<sup>††</sup>
| style="text-align: right"| 200
| style="text-align: right"| 570
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Encyclopédie]]''
| style="text-align: left" | 1751–1780
| style="text-align: right"| 72
| style="text-align: right"| 20
| style="text-align: right"| —
| style="text-align: right"| 278
|-
| style="text-align: left" | [[Encarta|Microsoft Encarta]]
| style="text-align: left" | Encarta Deluxe 2002
| style="text-align: right" | 70<sup>‡‡</sup>
| style="text-align: right" | 40
| style="text-align: right" | 200
| style="text-align: right" | 600
|-
| style="text-align: left" | [[Encarta|Microsoft Encarta]]
| style="text-align: left" | Encarta Deluxe 2005<sup>**</sup>
| style="text-align: right"| 63
| style="text-align: right"| 40
| style="text-align: right"| 200
| style="text-align: right"| 200
|-
| style="text-align: left" | [[Encarta|Microsoft Encarta]]
| style="text-align: left" | 2002 ''Encarta Encyclopedia''
| style="text-align: right"| 40
| style="text-align: right"| 26
| style="text-align: right"| 200
| style="text-align: right"| 200
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Encyclopedia Americana]]''
| style="text-align: left" | 2006
| style="text-align: right"| 45<ref>[http://go.grolier.com/go-ol/static/features/eafeatrs.htm Grolier]</ref>
| style="text-align: right"| 25
| style="text-align: right"| —
| style="text-align: right"| 556
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia Online]]''
| style="text-align: center"| —
| style="text-align: right"| 39<ref>[http://go.grolier.com/go-ol/static/features/gmefeatrs.htm Grolier online]</ref>
| style="text-align: right"| 11
| style="text-align: right"| 70
| style="text-align: right"| 280
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Columbia Encyclopedia]]''
| style="text-align: left" | Sixth ed. 2000
| style="text-align: right"| 51
| style="text-align: right"| 6.5
| style="text-align: right"| 40
| style="text-align: right"| 130
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Meyers Konversations-Lexikon]]''
| style="text-align: left" | Fourth ed. 1888–92
| style="text-align: right"| 97
| style="text-align: right"| 15.5
| style="text-align: right"| 110
| style="text-align: right"| —
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Encyclopædia Universalis]]''
| style="text-align: left" | 13th ed. 2008
| style="text-align: right"| 41.5<sup>⁑</sup>
| style="text-align: right"| 60
| style="text-align: right"| 350
| style="text-align: right"| 1,450
|-
| style="text-align: left" |''[[Otto's encyclopedia|Ottův slovník naučný]]''
| style="text-align: left" | 1888–1908
| style="text-align: right"| 150
| style="text-align: right"| ?
| style="text-align: right"| 130
| style="text-align: right"| ?
|-
|}
<nowiki>*</nowiki>Classical Chinese is a very compact language. The result is very short articles for the same content.

<sup>†</sup>It is said that the Yongle Encyclopedia is larger than the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, but it is uncertain how they were compared.

<sup>‡</sup>[[Kenneth Kister|Kenneth F. Kister]], ''Kister's best encyclopedias: a comparative guide to general and specialized encyclopedias,'' (1994) p. 450. [Article count is for the 82-volume edition, rather than the 119-volume one.]

<sup>§</sup>Alfieri, G. Treccani Degli. "Enciclopedia italiana" ''Diccionario Literario'' (2001 HORA, S.A.)

<sup>**</sup>Number of encyclopedic articles. The ''Nationalencyklopedin'' totals 356,000 entries.

<sup>††</sup>Kister, op. cit., p. 365.

<nowiki>**</nowiki>Includes 10,000 historical archives.

<sup>‡‡</sup>Advertised as containing "over 63,000 articles...with 36,000-plus map locations, and over 29,000 editor-approved Web site links." The 2006 Premium CD-ROM had 68,000 articles.<ref>[http://www.microsoft.com/products/encarta/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=002 Encarta]</ref>

<sup>⁑</sup>Advertised as containing 41,500 articles written by 6,803 authors, 60 million of words, 350 million of characters, 360,000 links, 122,000 definitions in the included dictionary, 130,000 bibliographical references.<ref> [http://assistance.universalis.fr/IMG/pdf/DDP_Universalis_2008_v13.pdf 2008 Press release]</ref>

==Size of other information collections==
{{update|section|date=May 2023}}
Note that Wikipedia is neither a [[WP:NOT#DICT|dictionary]] nor a [[WP:NOT#DIR|web index]]; these figures are just for order-of-magnitude comparison.

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
===Astronomy===
* The [[Guide Star Catalog|Guide Star Catalog II]] has entries on '''998,402,801''' distinct astronomical objects searchable online.

===Biology===
* The [[World Resources Institute]] claims that approximately '''1.4 million''' [[species]] have been named, out of an unknown number of total species. A 2011 study says there are ''8,700,000'' species (6,500,000 land species, 2,200,000 marine species).<ref>[http://www.rtve.es/noticias/20110823/calculo-mas-preciso-historia-cifra-87-millones-especies-habitan-tierra/456588.shtml El cálculo más preciso de la historia cifra las especies que viven en la Tierra en 8,7 millones] {{in lang|es}}</ref>

===Chemistry===
* {{As of|2018|9}}, over '''227 million''' [[CAS registry number]]s have been allocated for [[chemical compound]]s.
* The [[Beilstein database]] claims entries on "'''8 million''' organic and '''1.4 million''' inorganic and organometallic compounds".
* The [[Merck Index]] Subscription Edition has over '''10,000''' [[monograph]]s on chemical compounds.

===Film and television===
*{{As of|2021|9}}, The [[Internet Movie Database]] has records on '''8,313,921''' titles and '''11,262,925''' names.<ref>[http://www.imdb.com/stats IMDB]</ref>

=== Genetics ===
*Each [[human|human being]] is estimated to have '''20,000 to 25,000''' [[gene]]s.
*[[Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man]]<ref>[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=OMIM Online Mendelian Inheritance]</ref> has over '''25,000''' entries, each describing a known gene, {{as of|2019|6|28|lc=on}}.<ref>[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Omim/mimstats.html site statistics]</ref>
*GenBank, an online database of DNA sequences from over '''260,000''' species ([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/index.html]), has ({{as of|2008|1|lc=on}}) over 110 million entries (sequence records) covering over 100 gigabases.

===Geography===
*[[Ordnance Survey]] [[OS MasterMap|MasterMap]] ([http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/osmastermap/ official site]) is a record of every fixed feature in [[Great Britain]], in a continuous digital map. Each of the '''440 million''' fixed geographical features has a unique [[TOID]] ('''TO'''pographical '''ID'''entifier).
*The [[National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]] (NGA) ([https://www.nga.mil/ https://www.nga.mil/]) [[GEOnet Names Server]] contains approximately '''3.88 million''' named geographical features outside the United States, with '''5.34 million''' names.
*{{As of|2004|3}}, the [[USGS]] [[Geographic Names Information System]] claims to have over '''2 million''' physical and cultural geographic features within the [[United States]].
*{{As of|2018|9}}, [[GeoNames]] ([http://www.geonames.org/about.html]) contains over '''25 million''' geographical names and consists of '''11.8 million''' unique features whereof '''2.8 million''' populated places and '''5.5 million''' alternate names.

=== Internet ===

* Over '''25 billion''' web pages with over '''1 trillion''' unique URLs were known to [[Google]] on February 24, 2006.
* [[Netcraft]] logged roughly '''40.5 million''' distinct websites in January 2018.
* {{As of|2013|4}}, the [[DMOZ]] web index claims to have over '''1 million''' categories for over '''5 million''' websites.
* {{As of|2011|8}}, [[Internet Archive]] claims to have indexed over '''150 billion pages''', '''+548,000 moving images''', '''+82,000 concerts''', '''+948,000 recordings''' and '''+2,945,000 texts'''.

===Language===
* The ''[[Oxford Dictionary of English]]'' (formerly ''The New Oxford Dictionary of English'') claims '''355,000''' definitions, and four million words of text.<sup>[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Dictionary-English-Dictionaries/dp/0199571120]</sup>
* The ''[[Oxford English Dictionary#The second Supplement and the Second Edition|Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition]]'' claims '''301,100''' definitions (with '''616,500''' word forms defined), and 59 million words of text.<sup>[http://www.oed.com/page/facts/Dictionary+facts]</sup>

===Law===
*''[[American Jurisprudence]]'', Second Edition, is a '''231''' volume collection of American common law.
*''[[Black's Law Dictionary]]'', Eleventh Edition, has '''55,000''' [[common law]] legal terms.
*''The [[Encyclopedia of Law]]'' has '''105,000''' legal entries.

===Libraries===
*The [[British Library]] is known to hold over '''170 million''' items.
*The [[Library of Congress]] claims that it holds approximately '''167 million''' items, '''14 million''' of which are electronically searchable.
*[[Copac]] is a searchable electronic catalogue of over '''40 million''' books held in libraries in the [[United Kingdom]] and [[Republic of Ireland|Ireland]] (includes all electronic records from the British Library)

===Music===
* The [[freedb]] database holds information for nearly '''2 million''' [[compact disc]]s. Many of the disks are duplicates, however, so the number of unique CDs is unclear.
* The [[AllMusic]] database contains entries for over '''3 million''' releases, and over '''30 million''' tracks as of {{as of|2017}}.
* ''[[The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'', Second Edition, claims "25 million words with over '''29,000''' articles" about the subject of [[music]] alone.
* {{As of|2011|8}}, [[Jamendo]] project contains over '''50,000''' free and open albums.

===People===
* Thomson-Gale's ''Biography Resource Center'' contains over '''1,335,000''' biographies. 335,000 are essays, while over a million are thumbnail entries.<sup>[http://www.gale.com/servlet/ItemDetailServlet?region=9&imprint=000&titleCode=GAL43&cf=n&type=4&id=114945]</sup>
* The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' has over '''50,000''' articles on famous Britons, in 50 million words (implying an average article size of 1000 words).
* The old British ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]'' had over '''50,000''' articles in 50 million words.

===Science and technology===
* The [[Espacenet]] free online service contains records on more than '''90 million''' patent publications from the [[European Patent Office]] patent databases.
* The [[Inspec]] database contains over '''17 million''' abstracts.
* The [[Ei Compendex]] database contains over '''18 million''' records.
* The [[Elsevier Biobase]] database contains over '''4.1 million''' records.
* The [[IEEE Xplore]] database contains over '''4.5 million''' records.
{{div col end}}

== The cost of a printed Wikipedia ==

The Print Wikipedia project published all of the English Wikipedia text, without photos, as of 2015 in 7473 volumes with 700 pages each (5.2 million pages in total).  [[Lulu (company)|Lulu]] is willing to sell each volume for US$80, and the whole set for US$500,000.<ref>[http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/06/19/meet-print-wikipedia/ 7,473 volumes at 700 pages each: meet Print Wikipedia « Wikimedia blog]</ref>

{{As of|2015|07}}, there were approximately 23 billion characters.  Assuming 5,000 characters per page that would yield 4.6 million pages. If you then add 25% for extra space for photos, tables, and diagrams, that would yield 5.75 million pages. This would produce 14,375 volumes of 400 pages each. As an example, allowing US$0.05 per page would yield a cost of US$287,500 without binding.

==Footnote on Wikipedia statistics==
Very detailed statistics for almost all aspects of Wikipedia are available from [https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm].

Statistics for this page are taken from the '''Article count (alternate)''' table and from the '''Words''' table. 

Excluding redirect pages, there are roughly (using figures from September 1, 2006):
* 1.4 million articles that have at least a single link.
* 1.3 million articles that have at least a single link and 200 readable characters (roughly equivalent to at least 33 words).

Taking the difference of these two figures, there are about:
* 100,000 articles that have at least a single link but fewer than 200 characters.

There is also an uncounted number of articles which have no links. The current statistics provide no indication of the size of this last category. The 609 million words in fact span the 1.3 million [[bona fide]] articles, the remaining 100,000 linked articles, and the unknown number of articles without links. A rough estimate of the word count in the latter two categories is ten million words.  Dividing the remaining 600 million words by 1.3 million gives a mean article length of about 460 words.

Further, of the articles on the English Wikipedia, perhaps 36,000 are "data dumped" [[gazetteer]] entries about towns and cities in the United States. It is controversial whether gazetteer entries should count towards the number of "real" encyclopedia articles; however, their statistical significance is very much less now than in October 2002 when they were added.  Very many have been colonised by Wikipedians who have transformed them to varying extents, in some cases to an unimpeachably encyclopedic status.

== See also ==

* [[Wikipedia:Modelling Wikipedia's growth]]
* [[Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia]] (focuses on article count)
* [[Wikipedia:Largest encyclopedia]]
* [[Wikipedia:Statistics]]
* [[Wikipedia:Statistics Department]]
* [[User:Emijrp/All human knowledge]]

== References ==

{{Reflist|2}}

[[Category:Wikipedia statistics|Size comparisons]]