Wikipedia itself doesn’t actually make its own popularity stats public anymore, but outside researchers can analyze its log files, and Swedish software engineer Johan Gunnarsson has now published a full year’s wrap-up for the first time.
Now what was the most searched article on Wikipedia in 2012?
Well, in the English language version of Wikipedia, it was Facebook, with 32.6 million views. The page for “Wiki” earned the second spot (how meta). Also, people wanted to know who died this year (“Deaths in 2012” came in at No. 3).
- Facebook 32,647,942 views
- Wiki 29,613,759 views
- Deaths in 2012 25,418,587 views
- One Direction 22,351,637 views
- The Avengers (2012 film) 22,268,644 views
- Fifty Shades of Grey 21,779,423 views
- 2012 phenomenon 20,619,920 views
- The Dark Knight Rises 18,882,885 views
- Google 18,508,719 views
- The Hunger Games 18,431,626 views
Johan also released the list in other languages. The most-visited page in Japanese is a list of adult movie actresses; the best-read Italian article is about the TV show Grey’s Anatomy; and the top German article is, peculiarly, about cul de sac streets. Interesting….
