Language: Location: Search stop spin Map:

Mapping Wikipedia visualises all the geo-located articles for a number of languages. Each point on the map is an article that refers to a location somewhere on the earth. This could be a place, a geographic feature, the site of an historic event, or even a fictional island.

Currently maps are available for languages relating to the Middle East and North Africa. Please note, the map doesn't tell us about the location of Wikipedia authors, it shows the location of article subjects.

This version of the project includes a timeline that shows how Wikipedia has evolved. The timeline filters the articles by creation date, highlighting the patterns of stub generation over time. (Subsequent article revisions are not shown, only the initial creation date).

Images and Videos

For more information, videos and images of the project see:

• Videos and commentary on the project Blog
• Videos on the Mapping Wikipedia Vimeo
• Hi-res images on the main project page

Browsers

We recommend using the latest version of Chrome, FireFox, Opera, IE or Safari. There's Flash support for IE 7 and IE 8, but IE 9 or above is preferable.

Beware! Some searches will require a large download. For example, a worldwide search for English articles is likely to take a long time and might crash older browsers. Try narrowing the search to a particular region.

Instructions

• Select a Language and a Location and click Search to start loading
• Use the Stop button next to Search to cancel a search in progress
• Rollover the points to see the article titles, and click to view the article info and Wikipedia link
• From the Maps menu you can select which article metric to display, e.g. Word Count, Number of Authors, or Creation Date
• To filter articles by creation date drag the timeline handles, and animate using the Play button. The Animation Mode button switches between a cumulative and a fixed period animation.

Credits

The map was created by Gavin Baily and Sarah Bagshaw at TraceMedia, using data generated by Mark Graham and Bernie Hogan at the Oxford Internet Institute. For more information please contact gavin[at]tracemedia.co.uk.

Developed using Open Layers and Google Maps API.

Wikipedia data

The dataset was generated from XML dumps of Wikipedia. The source code for part of processing is available from the Oxford Internet Institute on github.