Wikipedia article depth

The editing depth, or simply depth, of Wikipedia is one of several possible rough indicators of the encyclopedia's collaborative quality. It does not refer to academic quality, which cannot be computed, but to Wikipedian quality, i.e. the depth of collaborativeness—a descriptor that is highly relevant for a Wikipedia.

Definition

The formula assumes that a relatively high number of page edits and the presence of support pages means articles have been updated. And the latter support pages are assumed to be a more important factor.

In the list of Wikipedias, depth is currently defined as:

$\text{Depth}=\frac{\text{Edits}}{\text{Articles}}\cdot \frac{\text{Non-Articles}}{\text{Articles}}\cdot (1-\frac{\text{Articles}}{\text{Total}})$

The depth can be simplified to the equivalent formula below:

$\text{Depth}=\frac{\text{Edits}}{\text{Total}}\cdot {\left(\frac{\text{Non-Articles}}{\text{Articles}}\right)}^2$

• Non-Articles are user pages, redirects, images, "project" pages, categories, templates, and all talk pages.
• Total is simply Non-Articles + Articles.

Among editions with at least 10,000 articles the English Wikipedia has the most depth, at 1380.8 ( = 20.72 × 66.65).

Among editions with at least 10,000 articles, the Ladin Wikipedia has the least depth, at 0.002 ( = 1.33 × 0.002).

Background

The measurement of depth was introduced after some limitations of the classic measurement of article count were realized. This insight is similar to the various suggestions to redefine the ordering of Wikipedias that appear on the international front page www.wikipedia.org. See Top Ten Wikipedias and Talk:Www.wikipedia.org portal.

In early February 2006, the list of Wikipedias only listed the article count. But on February 10, 2006, this changed into a table format that also listed the total edit count, number of users and admins.

The depth column first appeared on November 29, 2006. The initial definition was Edits/Articles, giving the English Wikipedia a value of 62. This definition changed already the next day to (Edits/Articles) × (Non-Articles/Articles), giving the English Wikipedia a value of 209. The next definition change occurred on October 9, 2007, when the stub-ratio factor was appended. The stub ratio is (1-(Articles/Total)).

The formula changed again on October 17, October 28, and finally on April 11, 2008.

The discussion of the introduction of the depth parameter is found in Talk:List of Wikipedias/Archive 4. Early on, there were discussions of whether depth implies quality. The changes in October 2007 were discussed in Talk:List of Wikipedias/Archive 5#Depth 2.0.

10,000+ articles

The table shows the list of Wikipedias with over 10,000 articles. It can be sorted by Depth. Data on this page is automatically updated every day ().

N.B.: Default sorting is by language code, but it is possible to sort the table by any column.

Language	Language (local)	Wiki	Depth	Articles	Edits	Total Pages
Acehnese	Acehnese	ace	7.67	13,083	158,715	28,415
Afrikaans	Afrikaans	af	43.14	139,973	3,132,408	511,493
Alemannic	Alemannisch	als	27.08	31,848	1,086,579	75,552
Amharic	አማርኛ	am	32.92	15,734	394,548	46,841
Aragonese	Aragonés	an	33.08	88,141	2,481,629	248,597
Arabic	العربية	ar	290.31	1,338,405	76,961,043	9,240,113
Moroccan Arabic	داريجة	ary	103.14	20,473	591,925	110,174
Egyptian Arabic	مصرى	arz	0.89	1,633,927	13,276,449	2,270,587
Assamese	অসমীয়া	as	78.25	25,997	647,959	128,347
Asturian	Asturianu	ast	11.54	141,715	4,758,851	252,615
Kotava	Kotava	avk	0.19	29,905	147,841	36,382
Azerbaijani	Azərbaycanca	az	62	218,727	9,143,344	693,020
South Azerbaijani	تۆرکجه	azb	5.2	244,925	1,594,387	580,870
Bashkir	Башҡорт	ba	24.98	64,316	1,307,188	185,369
Balinese	Bali	ban	3.62	39,474	271,627	80,303
Bavarian	Boarisch	bar	72.79	27,234	854,025	111,003
Samogitian	Žemaitėška	bat-smg	6.64	17,276	362,971	30,096
Central Bicolano	Bikol	bcl	10.06	22,623	311,325	51,929
Belarusian	Беларуская	be	21.97	268,062	5,220,268	741,593
Belarusian (Taraškievica)	Беларуская (тарашкевіца)	be-tarask	37.24	91,490	2,690,543	267,564
Bulgarian	Български	bg	29.61	312,743	13,039,439	709,765
Bengali	বাংলা	bn	267.05	192,283	9,214,983	1,430,197
Bishnupriya Manipuri	বিষ্ণুপ্রিয়া মণিপুরী	bpy	32.96	25,098	895,850	63,444
Breton	Brezhoneg	br	7.95	91,887	2,197,952	162,310
Bosnian	Bosanski	bs	86.48	98,944	3,924,887	388,402
Buginese	Basa Ugi	bug	0.84	15,976	211,159	20,552
Catalan	Català	ca	43.9	806,959	38,954,625	2,026,398
Chechen	Нохчийн	ce	19.98	868,098	26,997,154	1,896,531
Min Dong	Mìng-dĕ̤ng-ngṳ̄	cdo	3.21	16,773	106,125	33,721
Cebuano	Sinugboanong Binisaya	ceb	2.32	6,116,100	37,148,737	11,236,746
Sorani	کوردی	ckb	28.65	85,117	1,694,348	265,446
Crimean Tatar	Qırımtatarca	crh	3.97	29,773	246,055	58,770
Czech	Čeština	cs	49.93	600,603	26,291,342	1,670,301
Chuvash	Чăваш	cv	8.43	59,256	876,673	123,973
Welsh	Cymraeg	cy	25.32	284,814	15,694,766	554,122
Danish	Dansk	da	56.77	316,488	12,356,401	992,248
German	Deutsch	de	93.75	3,161,587	269,217,206	8,648,023
Zazaki	Zazaki	diq	2.06	44,163	560,096	65,920
Greek	Ελληνικά	el	49.32	274,839	11,876,343	764,566
Emilian-Romagnol	Emiliàn e rumagnòl	eml	12.44	14,346	174,561	37,927
English	English	en	1380.82	7,256,095	1,377,554,883	66,496,269
Esperanto	Esperanto	eo	16.78	390,170	9,479,211	875,964
Spanish	Español	es	189.82	2,146,152	175,568,662	8,745,616
Estonian	Eesti	et	21.69	262,694	7,252,144	620,563
Basque	Euskara	eu	15.43	499,362	11,841,575	1,096,090
Persian	فارسی	fa	153.79	1,099,864	44,781,244	6,157,576
Finnish	Suomi	fi	36.45	627,459	24,287,661	1,599,683
Faroese	Føroyskt	fo	33.82	14,220	388,898	41,107
French	Français	fr	283.56	2,786,894	240,310,830	14,191,166
North Frisian	Nordfriisk	frr	11.61	21,616	284,205	53,600
West Frisian	Frysk	fy	26.85	61,094	1,241,135	182,469
Irish	Gaeilge	ga	7.82	64,551	1,328,252	118,467
Scottish Gaelic	Gàidhlig	gd	19.55	16,044	582,923	32,895
Galician	Galego	gl	43.75	246,190	7,737,680	754,785
Gorontalo	Hulontalo	gor	1.2	15,148	68,896	25,168
Gujarati	ગુજરાતી	gu	77.67	30,936	904,909	137,030
Hausa	Hausa / هَوُسَ	ha	0.9	121,424	972,655	169,613
Fiji Hindi	Fiji Hindi	hif	76.7	12,504	338,876	57,683
Hebrew	עברית	he	260.32	407,575	44,045,819	1,699,169
Hindi	हिन्दी	hi	239.21	172,164	6,617,675	1,394,510
Croatian	Hrvatski	hr	20.46	236,112	7,609,992	513,564
Upper Sorbian	Hornjoserbsce	hsb	25.97	14,295	391,542	36,553
Haitian	Krèyol ayisyen	ht	0.85	72,132	887,808	93,779
Hungarian	Magyar	hu	60.82	575,645	29,398,883	1,634,004
Armenian	Հայերեն	hy	63.38	332,445	10,949,547	1,213,589
Interlingua	Interlingua	ia	4.79	30,419	701,222	47,811
Indonesian	Bahasa Indonesia	id	132.6	802,646	30,084,370	4,294,917
Ilokano	Ilokano	ilo	72.72	15,527	406,768	70,746
Ido	Ido	io	6.15	65,054	1,140,376	116,664
Icelandic	Íslenska	is	33.84	60,585	1,979,326	161,152
Italian	Italiano	it	209.72	1,992,795	152,790,830	8,994,978
Japanese	日本語	ja	92.88	1,524,914	111,339,388	4,469,453
Javanese	Basa Jawa	jv	20.41	75,594	1,756,889	187,026
Georgian	ქართული	ka	65.86	200,827	5,555,554	831,287
Kazakh	Қазақша	kk	16.57	245,793	3,683,583	673,608
Kannada	ಕನ್ನಡ	kn	123.56	34,859	1,427,970	167,612
Korean	한국어	ko	162.32	769,629	42,641,420	3,630,844
Kashmiri	کٲشُر	ks	10.05	11,889	154,974	27,877
Kurdish	Kurdî	ku	36.21	92,184	2,099,034	302,928
Kirghiz	Кыргызча	ky	2.25	76,617	663,546	126,848
Latin	Latina	la	15.88	142,602	3,988,036	297,934
Luxembourgish	Lëtzebuergesch	lb	23.45	68,073	2,709,120	144,098
Limburgish	Limburgs	li	87.6	15,221	485,889	68,848
Ligurian	Lìgure	lij	20.72	11,633	274,681	28,770
Ladin	Ladin	lld	0.002	183,222	253,336	191,114
Lombard	Lumbaart	lmo	7.25	80,329	1,333,596	153,746
Lithuanian	Lietuvių	lt	31.56	227,116	7,941,146	568,479
Latvian	Latviešu	lv	68.57	146,677	4,532,779	581,854
Maithili	मैथिली	mai	29.51	14,371	277,922	46,199
Banyumasan	Basa Banyumasan	map-bms	10.1	13,981	222,439	30,415
Malagasy	Malagasy	mg	10.21	104,232	1,151,448	263,625
Meadow Mari	Олык Марий (Olyk Marij)	mhr	21.15	11,331	203,583	31,985
Minangkabau	Bahaso Minangkabau	min	8.034	229,994	3,353,264	475,481
Macedonian	Македонски	mk	66.91	165,734	5,638,457	612,576
Malayalam	മലയാളം	ml	218.39	89,271	4,419,387	558,069
Mongolian	Монгол	mn	70.61	28,590	872,852	116,277
Meitei	ꯃꯤꯇꯩꯂꯣꯟ	mni	1.7	10,531	62,369	17,877
Marathi	मराठी	mr	40.97	103,756	2,722,579	337,607
Hill Mari	Кырык Мары (Kyryk Mary)	mrj	5.92	10,440	108,462	21,833
Malay	Bahasa Melayu	ms	16.59	445,171	6,976,594	1,195,980
Burmese language	မြန်မာဘာသာ	my	7.88	113,290	1,059,935	275,321
Mazandarani	مَزِروني	mzn	4.15	76,195	416,466	177,552
Neapolitan	Nnapulitano	nap	11.01	15,021	674,900	24,524
Low Saxon	Plattdüütsch	nds	8.02	85,977	1,075,556	187,693
Nepali	नेपाली	ne	96.82	30,070	1,386,072	115,467
Newari	नेवारी	new	28.41	75,049	1,126,134	271,447
Dutch	Nederlands	nl	20.03	2,230,446	71,975,683	4,811,708
Norwegian (Nynorsk)	Nynorsk	nn	13.89	181,229	3,672,035	405,757
Norwegian (Bokmål)	Norsk (Bokmål)	no	40.21	693,819	25,965,337	1,876,644
Navajo	Diné bizaad	nv	3.18	22,668	309,012	36,578
Occitan	Occitan	oc	10.57	91,003	2,498,868	167,643
Oriya	ଓଡ଼ିଆ	or	68.16	21,168	597,289	88,402
Ossetian	Иронау	os	50.8	21,764	594,320	77,938
Punjabi	ਪੰਜਾਬੀ	pa	22.01	59,759	848,785	193,665
Polish	Polski	pl	38.42	1,712,901	80,861,913	4,105,024
Piedmontese	Piemontèis	pms	1.77	71,567	885,418	104,199
Western Panjabi	شاہ مکھی پنجابی	pnb	4.26	75,793	710,021	147,018
Pashto	پښتو	ps	32.85	21,356	369,496	77,359
Portuguese	Português	pt	211.29	1,186,460	73,121,450	6,214,031
Quechua	Runa Simi	qu	22.64	24,662	690,049	58,965
Romanian	Română	ro	123.43	550,197	18,021,610	3,075,309
Russian	Русский	ru	166.89	2,125,253	155,562,489	8,569,048
Sanskrit	संस्कृतम्	sa	188.54	12,586	500,989	82,874
Sakha	Саха тыла	sah	32.29	18,271	429,962	55,611
Sicilian	Sicilianu	scn	17.5	26,357	784,373	55,755
Scots	Scots	sco	61.74	34,230	917,952	138,826
Sindhi	سنڌي، سندھی ، सिन्ध	sd	38.3	23,137	425,688	88,384
Serbo-Croatian	Srpskohrvatski / Српскохрватски	sh	751.17	461,960	42,692,539	4,632,735
Shan	လိၵ်ႈတႆး	shn	0.85	44,410	237,466	66,025
Sinhalese	සිංහල	si	156.23	25,797	801,742	177,525
Simple English	Simple English	simple	62.82	285,971	11,019,453	952,283
Slovak	Slovenčina	sk	24.32	261,937	8,375,088	610,779
Slovenian	Slovenščina	sl	32.71	199,393	6,759,070	513,782
Albanian	Shqip	sq	40.93	106,473	3,055,650	330,507
Serbian	Српски	sr	178.69	710,249	31,825,493	4,130,792
Sundanese	Basa Sunda	su	2.63	62,996	719,054	101,344
Swedish	Svenska	sv	19.11	2,629,435	59,710,982	6,390,099
Swahili	Kiswahili	sw	4.74	132,228	1,608,165	244,413
Silesian	Ślůnsko	szl	0.37	61,652	390,141	78,482
Tamil	தமிழ்	ta	39.64	191,632	4,671,346	637,263
Telugu	తెలుగు	te	60.16	130,104	4,848,700	430,956
Tajik	Тоҷикӣ	tg	10.48	119,439	1,490,515	290,028
Thai	ไทย	th	320.44	189,324	13,348,287	1,209,478
Tagalog	Tagalog	tl	139.14	50,711	2,231,278	251,562
Turkish	Türkçe	tr	166.78	707,911	38,281,648	3,453,991
Tatar	Татарча	tt	4.68	709,240	6,077,528	1,461,910
Ukrainian	Українська	uk	68.64	1,439,367	48,961,736	5,399,557
Urdu	اردو	ur	44.79	706,807	12,165,783	3,091,454
Uzbek	O‘zbek	uz	31.42	370,270	6,318,938	1,318,170
Venetian	Vèneto	vec	9.67	69,633	1,230,680	143,608
Vietnamese	Tiếng Việt	vi	105	1,305,416	75,619,289	4,607,102
Volapük	Volapük	vo	82.17	57,250	3,341,098	176,541
Walloon	Walon	wa	26.54	13,040	426,661	31,208
Waray-Waray	Winaray	war	4.32	1,267,051	7,741,910	2,870,813
Wu	吴语	wuu	1.74	48,490	400,981	76,387
Mingrelian	მარგალური (Margaluri)	xmf	4.84	22,493	254,095	42,807
Yiddish	ייִדיש	yi	44.8	15,822	601,246	44,694
Yoruba	Yorùbá	yo	3.56	41,391	634,278	66,714
Standard Moroccan Tamazight	ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ ⵜⴰⵏⴰⵡⴰⵢⵜ	zgh	42.96	12,275	197,923	54,490
Chinese	中文	zh	220.72	1,563,229	94,999,802	8,517,102
Classical Chinese	古文 / 文言文	zh-classical	197.34	14,765	447,919	123,816
Min Nan	Bân-lâm-gú	zh-min-nan	6.72	434,698	3,289,994	1,080,507
Cantonese	粵語	zh-yue	11.07	154,420	2,477,689	346,611
Zulu	isiZulu	zu	6.7	13,003	131,765	28,712
Language	Language (local)	Wiki	Depth	Articles	Edits	Total Pages

Trends

The following graph and table show how the depth of the largest 30 languages of Wikipedia (on November 2008) have developed over time.

Trend of article depth over time (2008–2025)

Date	en	de	fr	pl	ja	it	nl	pt	es	ru	sv	zh	no	fi	ca	uk	tr	ro	vo	cs	hu	eo	sk	da	id	he	ar	ko	lt	sr
Today	1381	94	284	38	93	210	20	211	190	167	19	221	40	36	44	69	167	123	82	50	61	17	24	57	133	260	290	162	32	179
1 Jul 2026	1366	94	280	37	93	206	20	209	191	167	19	220	42	37	43	68	171	123	99	50	61	17	24	57	134	262	290	164	31	179
1 Jan 2026	1344	94	276	37	93	198	20	207	193	168	19	217	45	37	42	66	186	119	126	50	61	17	24	57	140	267	289	166	31	175
1 Jul 2025	1318	94	271	36	92	193	20	204	195	163	18	213	47	38	41	61	189	126	154	50	60	17	24	57	136	268	285	171	30	174
1 Jan 2025	1288	94	268	35	91	191	19	200	197	161	18	211	48	38	41	60	188	129	188	51	60	17	23	57	138	271	279	166	30	171
1 Jul 2024	1258	94	264	34	91	189	19	197	198	158	18	210	48	38	40	58	175	153	211	51	61	17	23	58	139	270	271	168	29	167
1 Jan 2024	1218	93	261	33	90	187	19	195	199	157	17	207	48	39	40	57	164	154	233	51	61	17	23	58	139	268	264	167	29	163
1 Jul 2023	1193	93	258	33	89	184	18	192	200	154	17	206	47	39	39	55	165	152	257	50	60	16	22	58	131	268	254	167	28	161
1 Jan 2023	1159	93	255	33	88	182	18	186	202	153	17	206	46	39	39	55	154	149	277	50	60	16	22	59	125	264	242	150	28	159
1 July 2022	1130	93	253	33	87	179	18	182	204	154	16	206	46	39	39	55	166	146	15	47	59	16	22	60	116	260	237	154	28	157
1 Jan 2022	1094	92	246	32	86	176	17	179	207	138	14	205	46	39	37	54	175	145	14	47	59	16	21	64	103	257	231	152	27	156
1 July 2021	1072	93	242	32	85	172	17	176	210	137	12	202	46	40	36	53	199	122	14	46	59	16	21	64	103	258	227	153	26	155
1 Jan 2021	1041	94	239	31	84	168	16	175	210	136	9	201	42	40	34	49	203	120	14	45	59	16	21	63	108	259	219	151	24	157
1 July 2020	1009	94	236	30	84	169	16	172	208	136	7	198	42	40	32	44	222	118	14	47	59	17	20	64	109	259	214	152	23	157
1 Jan 2020	985	94	234	30	83	164	16	171	204	137	7	195	41	41	31	39	205	117	14	47	59	17	20	64	109	261	175	149	23	155
1 July 2019	964	94	229	30	82	160	15	166	199	135	7	188	42	42	30	38	200	114	14	46	58	17	19	64	110	260	182	150	23	151
1 Jan 2019	937	95	225	29	81	157	15	154	196	132	6	181	40	42	30	37	199	112	14	45	58	17	19	67	118	254	238	146	22	144
1 July 2018	907	94	224	28	80	155	14	150	205	134	6	175	39	42	30	38	205	110	14	42	58	17	19	67	117	247	225	110	23	141
1 Jan 2018	1011	97	222	27	80	132	14	148	204	149	6	175	38	45	31	39	221	103	15	42	59	17	19	66	125	254	219	115	23	133
1 July 2017	980	98	217	25	78	125	13	142	196	144	5	169	36	45	31	40	222	86	15	41	58	17	19	68	123	261	188	115	23	90
1 Jan 2017	953	100	213	24	77	122	13	138	191	140	5	161	36	45	31	39	229	85	15	40	58	17	19	66	107	256	218	112	22	71
1 July 2016	933	102	208	22	75	120	12	136	187	136	6	165	37	45	31	38	226	82	15	40	58	17	18	66	104	253	233	105	21	66
1 Jan 2016	910	98	205	21	72	115	11	133	198	131	9	163	35	46	31	37	240	82	15	41	59	17	18	68	84	251	223	90	21	69
1 July 2015	888	97	205	21	71	109	11	130	190	125	12	147	34	46	31	36	229	77	15	42	76	17	18	70	76	253	214	87	31	66
1 Jan 2015	887	89	193	20	69	105	9	123	176	115	11	131	32	44	31	37	210	97	15	39	97	18	19	70	65	257	214	87	31	66
1 July 2014	868	90	181	18	68	101	9	121	174	113	11	114	26	45	30	27	211	94	16	39	99	18	18	69	60	256	237	80	31	63
1 Jan 2014	824	90	172	18	66	98	10	117	172	109	11	108	28	45	27	38	214	90	15	39	100	18	18	67	56	253	248	82	31	57
1 July 2013	769	89	164	19	64	95	9	112	170	106	15	100	28	45	26	38	212	88	15	39	100	18	18	66	112	249	235	82	18	64
1 Jan 2013	731	89	165	17	61	91	18	103	175	104	38	108	28	44	24	38	214	81	15	38	99	18	15	62	88	242	243	77	17	57
1 July 2012	688	88	157	16	58	89	19	96	166	99	44	148	28	44	22	36	207	101	13	38	98	17	15	58	89	236	241	76	16	52
1 Jan 2012	648	89	151	14	56	85	18	88	158	92	50	90	29	44	20	35	207	97	12	37	92	16	24	39	72	231	230	74	17	51
1 July 2011	613	89	145	13	54	81	30	82	163	91	48	83	27	43	18	34	192	93	12	37	90	16	22	36	63	227	225	71	17	47
1 Jan 2011	572	87	140	10	51	77	29	71	179	90	46	80	25	41	17	33	185	86	11	34	86	16	20	35	61	220	208	62	17	40
1 July 2010	522	88	139	11	49	75	30	77	189	91	35	68	24	39	18	31	177	73	10	32	81	15	19	34	61	208	197	51	19	47
1 Jan 2010	478	86	128	10	46	71	27	74	141	87	31	63	23	37	17	25	159	54	9	33	71	14	16	31	42	205	167	43	19	46
1 July 2009	440	84	121	10	43	66	25	71	116	81	28	63	22	35	17	26	132	36	8	32	70	13	14	28	35	184	142	39	17	56
1 Jan 2009	413	81	115	9	41	57	23	66	94	74	24	71	20	32	17	15	95	30	8	28	64	13	10	26	30	177	117	36	15	52
1 July 2008	368	77	101	8	38	47	21	58	69	63	19	56	20	30	15	10	66	25	8	26	51	12	8	24	24	159	108	34	14	46
1 Jan 2008	302	70	79	9	33	43	20	49	51	56	15	59	18	27	14	12	43	17	3	24	39	11	7	21	20	132	107	27	12	35
1 July 2007	320	100	59	15			36			59	23		31	39										32
1 Jan 2007	224	87	45	12			32			37	19		25	34										24

Variants of the metric

Visualization for a set of Wikipedias with variant of the metric where $dept{h}^{\ast }=\frac{words}{articles}\cdot \frac{non\underset{\_}{}articles}{pages}$

See also

• Efficiency

More lists of Wikipedias by various criteria :

• List of Wikipedias by article count, users, file count and depth and its source (updated every 3 hours)
  (see also: wikistats.wmcloud.org for another list with all 364 active and closed Wikipedias)
• List of Wikipedias by edits per article and depth (both updated every 6 hours)
• List of Wikipedias by language group and family (both updated every 6 hours) and language families as a tree (not just Wikipedias)
• List of Wikipedias by country (updated manually)
• List of Wikipedias by speakers per article (updated every 6 hours)
• List of Wikipedias by sample of articles and expanded sample of articles (both updated monthly)
• List of Wikipedias by featured and good articles (both updated manually)
• List of Wikipedias by creation date (updated manually)
• List of Wikipedias in multiple writing systems
• List of Wikipedias having local media files and zero local media files (both updated manually)
• List of Wikipedia milestones or en:Wikipedia:Milestone statistics (tracking of major article-count milestones)
• List of largest wikis (not just Wikimedia wikis)
• Wikimedia News (announcements and tracking of milestones for all Wikimedia projects)
• Tell us about your Wikipedia

External links

• Wikipedia Article Depth Calculator