By Monica Anderson, Paul Hitlin and Michelle Atkinson

See our related post: Wikipedia at 15: Millions of readers in hundreds of languages.

Data for this report come from Pew Research Center analyses of publicly available sources. Data for the number of overall page views for different language versions were compiled from stats.wikimedia.org, and only the 10 language versions of Wikipedia with the most page views in 2015 were included. For the data regarding the top pages by language, Pew Research Center compiled and analyzed the hourly raw page count files posted by Wikimedia, the foundation that runs Wikipedia. Additional analysis was performed using data compiled by Johan Gunnarsson and Wikitrends. Only articles were included, as the home page and search pages were excluded. Researchers also checked each page count total for abnormalities in the data. 

Top 10 articles in English

Rank Article title Page Views
1 List of deaths by year 20,764,610
2 Wikipedia 12,032,767
3 Facebook 11,051,093
4 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) 10,686,129
5 List of Bollywood films of 2015 10,211,130
6 Star Wars: The Force Awakens 10,043,055
7 United States 9,596,130
8 87th Academy Awards 9,496,256
9 Google 9,307,762
10 Game of Thrones 9,169,916

Top 10 articles in Japanese

Rank Article Title English Translation Page Views
1 HKT48 Japanese pop group 1,930,377
2 SKE48 Japanese pop group 1,899,463
3 AKB48 Japanese pop group 1,885,675
4 NMB48 Japanese pop group 1,859,064
5 山口組 Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest organized crime group 1,752,063
6 ウィキペディア Wikipedia 1,588,899
7 アルスラーン戦記 The Heroic Legend of Arslan, an anime series 1,580,877
8 ダンジョンに出会いを求めるのは間違っているだろうか Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, an anime series 1,543,222
9 日本 Japan 1,479,574
10 スター・ウォーズ・シリーズ Star Wars 1,479,574

Top 10 articles in Spanish

Rank Article Title English Translation Page Views
1 Wikipedia 6,531,391
2 Voleibol Volleyball 3,097,606
3 Baloncesto Basketball 3,057,037
4 Arroba (símbolo) Symbol used to represent a unit of mass, widely known as the @ symbol 2,959,188
5 Tabla periódica de los elementos Periodic table of elements 2,935,342
6 Segunda Guerra Mundial World War II 2,847,674
7 Copa América 2015 Soccer tournament 2,713,045
8 Estados Unidos United States 2,696,082
9 Primera Guerra Mundial World War I 2,683,398
10 Piratas del Caribe Pirates of the Caribbean 2,586,918

Top 10 articles in German

Rank Article Title English Translation Page Views
1 Nekrolog_2015 Deaths of 2015 5,694,946
2 Deutschland Germany 4,575,197
3 Game of Thrones 2,778,905
4 Unix-Shell User interface for Unix computer operating system 2,584,872
5 Wikipedia 2,383,413
6 Islamischer Staat (Organisation) ISIS 1,795,835
7 Berlin 1,535,434
8 Vereinigte Staaten United States 1,488,794
9 Schweiz Switzerland 1,447,448
10 The Walking Dead (Fernsehserie) The Walking Dead TV series 1,431,033

Top 10 articles in Russian

Rank Article Title English Translation Page Views
1 Россия Russia 3,731,154
2 ВК(VK) Prominent Russian-language social network 2,814,944
3 Список умерших в 2015 году Deaths in 2015 2,514,702
4 Игра престолов (телесериал) Game of Thrones 2,477,666
5 YouTube 2,411,574
6 Путин, Владимир Владимирович Vladimir Putin, President of Russia 2,295,549
7 Википедия Wikipedia 2,268,401
8 Левиафан (фильм,_2014) Leviathan, Russian film 1,966,168
9 Одноклассники (Classmates) Prominent Russian-language social network 1,945,199
10 Украина Ukraine 1,944,727

Top 10 articles in French

Rank Article Title English Translation Page Views
1 Wikipedia 3,656,945
2 État islamique (organisation) Islamic State (ISIS) 3,148,282
3 France 2,072,668
4 Charlie Hebdo 1,850,171
5 Game of Thrones 1,763,600
6 Liste des épisodes de Naruto Shippuden List of episodes of Naruto Shippuden, an animated Japanese TV series 1,739,740
7 Facebook 1,569,784
8 Molière French playwright 1,486,043
9 Victor Hugo French writer 1,358,510
10 Wiki Wiki as a web application 1,213,570

Top 10 articles in Italian

Rank Article Title English Translation Page Views
1 Italia Italy 1,158,364
2 Il Trono di Spade (serie televisiva) Game of Thrones 1,065,128
3 Sergio Mattarella President of Italy 1,059,588
4 Stato Islamico Islamic State (ISIS) 1,037,341
5 Grey’s Anatomy Grey’s Anatomy TV series 1,011,676
6 Calendario dei santi Calendar of Saints 962,151
7 The Walking Dead (serie televisiva) The Walking Dead 882,224
8 The Vampire Diaries TV series 868,088
9 Guerre stellari Star Wars 835,224
10 The Big Bang Theory 738,591

Top 10 articles in Chinese

Rank Article Title English Translation Page Views
1 Running Man South Korean TV variety show 4,321,334
2 中华人民共和国 People’s Republic of China 1,804,375
3 朝鲜战争 Korean War 1,208,933
4 巴黎 Paris 1,182,743
5 习近平 Xi Jinping, President of China 1,182,270
6 六四事件 1989 Tiananmen Square protests 1,148,457
7 武则天 Wu Zetian, former Emperor of China 1,141,285
8 英语 English 1,096,379
9 日本 Japan 1,046,509
10 臺灣 Taiwan 1,024,608

Top 10 articles in Portuguese

Rank Article Title English Translation Page Views
1 Coca-Cola 1,864,490
2 Brasil 1,528,042
3 Lista de episódios de Naruto Shippuden List of episodes of Naruto Shippuden, an animated Japanese TV series 1,149,292
4 Basquetebol Basketball 974,937
5 Tamanho de papel Paper size 875,076
6 Estados Unidos United States 872,226
7 Segunda Guerra Mundial World War II 822,658
8 Star Wars 728,514
9 Stephen Hawking 720,339
10 Portugal 705,690

Top 10 articles in Polish

Rank Article Title English Translation Page Views
1 Polska Poland 1,902,752
2 Andrzej Duda President of Poland 1,339,472
3 Warszawa Warsaw 837,834
4 Jan Paweł II Pope John Paul II 770,840
5 Harry Potter 760,642
6 Gwiezdne wojny Star Wars 757,077
7 Niemcy Germany 723,786
8 James Bond 722,886
9 Państwo_Islamskie Islamic State (ISIS) 713,391
10 Paweł Kukiz Polish singer and activist 709,788

Source: Pew Research Center analysis of Wikipedia data