List of articles every Wikipedia should have

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This page is currently marked as Version 1.1 (1000 articles in total) which refers to the revision done on November 15, 2008 at 18:35. Modifications after November 15th, 2008 may not reflect broad consensus.

Older versions:

• Version 1.0 (1365 articles)

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Important note: Since this list is full, it is important that you discuss any changes (adds or deletes) on the discussion for this list first. If you add an entry at this point, it will be necessary to justify deleting something else.

There are a growing number of Wikipedia projects, some very active and others quite stagnant. This list is indended as a guideline for those projects so that they will contain a minimum amount of basic, useful information. This way, people will be encouraged to use these projects and help in their growth. The articles should contain at least basic information on the topics they describe, thus providing a starting point for growth besides being a useful reference for the readers.

In addition to simply listing the articles, this project hopes to eventually create easily translatable versions of these articles, possibly containing core information at simple:Wikipedia:List of articles all languages should have. Until then, links to the largest Wikipedia, the English language version, are provided as a translatable resource.

Top-priority entries, which are deemed especially necessary for any Wikipedia to have, are marked in bold; like the list itself, these selections should not be viewed as dictating how important certain topics are, but only as a utility for smaller Wikipedias to start from.

This list is also used to obtain the List of Wikipedias by sample of articles. Articles which are absent from one wikipedia are shown in List of Wikipedias by sample of articles/Absent Articles.

Section	Version 1.1	Current Number	Target Number
Biography	216	216	TBD
History	40	40	TBD
Geography	148	148	TBD
Society	77	77	TBD
Culture	150	150	TBD
Science	245	245	TBD
Technology	71	71	TBD
Foodstuffs	31	31	TBD
Mathematics	22	22	TBD
Total	1000	1000	1000

Count checked: 18:35, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Contents 1 How to use this list 2 Biography 2.1 Actors, dancers and models 2.2 Artists and architects 2.3 Authors, playwrights and poets 2.4 Composers and musicians 2.5 Explorers 2.6 Film directors and screenwriters 2.7 Inventors, scientists and mathematicians 2.8 Social scientists (philosophers, economists, historians and thinkers) 2.9 Politicians, leaders and aristocrats 2.10 Religious figures 2.11 Revolutionaries and activists 3 History 3.1 Prehistory and ancient world 3.2 Middle Ages and Early Modern 3.3 Modern 4 Geography 4.1 Continents and major regions 4.2 Countries 4.3 Cities 4.4 Bodies of water 4.5 Mountains, valleys and deserts 5 Society 5.1 Family and relationships 5.2 Thought, behavior and emotion 5.3 Politics 5.4 Business and economics 5.5 Law 5.6 International organizations 5.7 War and military 5.8 Social issues 6 Culture 6.1 Language and literature 6.2 Architecture and civil engineering 6.3 Film, radio and television 6.4 Music 6.5 Recreation 6.6 World view and religion 6.7 Philosophy 7 Science 7.1 Astronomy 7.2 Biology 7.2.1 Biological processes 7.2.2 Anatomy 7.2.3 Health and medicine 7.2.4 Organisms 7.3 Chemistry 7.4 Weather, climate and geology 7.5 Physics 7.6 Measurement and units 7.7 Timekeeping 8 Technology 8.1 Communication 8.2 Electronics 8.2.1 Computers and Internet 8.3 Energy and fuels 8.4 Raw materials 8.5 Transportation 8.6 Weapons 9 Foodstuffs 9.1 Beverages 10 Mathematics

[edit] How to use this list

There are several different ways to use this list. The first is to translate it into the language of your Wikipedia and see whether you have articles on all of these topics. The topics will eventually all be linked to articles in the Simple English Wikipedia. If you are missing an article, or if you are starting out with a new language, you may want to translate these basic articles. You can also check the language links in the English articles for more comprehensive coverage of the topics in many other languages.

[edit] Biography

This section is for people. Have at least one paragraph on the key historical figures.

[edit] Actors, dancers and models

1. Bernhardt, Sarah
2. Chaplin, Charlie
3. Dietrich, Marlene
4. Monroe, Marilyn

[edit] Artists and architects

1. Corbusier, Le
2. Dalí, Salvador
3. Donatello
4. Dürer, Albrecht
5. Gogh, Vincent van
6. Goya, Francisco
7. Kahlo, Frida
8. Matisse, Henri
9. Leonardo da Vinci
10. Michelangelo
11. Pei, I. M.
12. Picasso, Pablo
13. Raphael
14. Rembrandt
15. Rubens, Peter Paul
16. Velázquez, Diego
17. Warhol, Andy
18. Wright, Frank Lloyd

[edit] Authors, playwrights and poets

1. Abu Nuwas
2. Bashō
3. Borges, Jorge Luis
4. Byron, George
5. Cervantes, Miguel de
6. Chaucer, Geoffrey
7. Chekhov, Anton
8. Dante Alighieri
9. Dickens, Charles
10. Dostoevsky, Fyodor
11. García Márquez, Gabriel
12. von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
13. Homer
14. Horace
15. Hugo, Victor
16. Ibsen, Henrik
17. Joyce, James
18. Kafka, Franz
19. Khayyam, Omar
20. Li Bai
21. Mahfouz, Naguib
22. Molière
23. Nabokov, Vladimir
24. Ovid
25. Proust, Marcel
26. Pushkin, Alexander
27. Rimbaud, Arthur
28. Saramago, José
29. Sappho
30. Shakespeare, William
31. Sophocles
32. Tolstoy, Leo
33. Twain, Mark
34. Virgil

[edit] Composers and musicians

1. Bach, Johann Sebastian
2. Beatles, The
3. Beethoven, Ludwig van
4. Berlioz, Hector
5. Bruckner, Anton
6. Brahms, Johannes
7. Chopin, Frédéric
8. Dvořák, Antonín
9. Handel, Georg Frideric
10. Hendrix, Jimi
11. Mahler, Gustav
12. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
13. Puccini, Giacomo
14. Presley, Elvis
15. Rolling Stones, The
16. Schubert, Franz
17. Smetana, Bedřich
18. Schumann, Robert
19. Stravinsky, Igor
20. Tchaikovsky, Petr
21. Verdi, Giuseppe
22. Vivaldi, Antonio
23. Wagner, Richard

[edit] Explorers

1. Amundsen, Roald
2. Armstrong, Neil
3. Cartier, Jacques
4. Columbus, Christopher
5. Cook, James
6. Cortés Hernán
7. Gagarin, Yuri
8. Gama, Vasco da
9. Magellan, Ferdinand
10. Polo, Marco
11. Zheng He
12. von Humboldt, Alexander

[edit] Film directors and screenwriters

1. Bergman, Ingmar
2. Disney, Walt
3. Eisenstein, Sergei
4. Fellini, Federico
5. Hitchcock, Alfred
6. Kubrick, Stanley
7. Kurosawa, Akira
8. Lucas, George
9. Ray, Satyajit
10. Spielberg, Steven

[edit] Inventors, scientists and mathematicians

1. Archimedes
2. Berners-Lee, Tim
3. Brahe, Tycho
4. Copernicus, Nicolaus
5. Curie, Marie
6. Darwin, Charles
7. Edison, Thomas
8. Einstein, Albert
9. Euclides
10. Euler, Leonhard
11. Faraday, Michael
12. Fermi, Enrico
13. Fibonacci
14. Ford, Henry
15. Fourier, Joseph
16. Galileo Galilei
17. Gauss, Carl Friedrich
18. Gutenberg, Johannes
19. Joule, James Prescott
20. Kepler, Johannes
21. Khwarizmi, Muhammad ibn Musa al-
22. Leibniz, Gottfried
23. Linnaeus, Carl
24. Maxwell, James Clerk
25. Mendeleev, Dmitri
26. Newton, Sir Isaac
27. Pascal, Blaise
28. Pasteur, Louis
29. Planck, Max
30. Pythagoras
31. Rutherford, Ernest
32. Schrödinger, Erwin
33. Tesla, Nikola
34. Turing, Alan
35. Watt, James

[edit] Social scientists (philosophers, economists, historians and thinkers)

1. Aquinas, Thomas
2. Aristotle
3. Augustine of Hippo
4. Avicenna
5. Confucius
6. Bruno, Giordano
7. Beauvoir, Simone de
8. Chomsky, Noam
9. Descartes, René
10. Durkheim, Émile
11. Francis of Assisi, Saint
12. Freud, Sigmund
13. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
14. Herodotus
15. Hippocrates
16. Kant, Immanuel
17. Keynes, John Maynard
18. Locke, John
19. Luther, Martin
20. Luxemburg, Rosa
21. Machiavelli, Niccolò
22. Marx, Karl
23. Nietzsche, Friedrich
24. Paul of Tarsus
25. Plato
26. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
27. Jean-Paul Sartre
28. Smith, Adam
29. Socrates
30. Sun Tzu
31. Voltaire
32. Weber, Max
33. Wittgenstein, Ludwig

[edit] Politicians, leaders and aristocrats

1. Akbar the Great
2. Alexander the Great
3. Atatürk, Kemal
4. Augustus
5. Ben-Gurion, David
6. von Bismarck, Otto
7. Bolívar, Simón
8. Bonaparte, Napoleon
9. Julius Caesar
10. Charlemagne
11. Churchill, Winston
12. Cixi, Empress Dowager
13. Cleopatra
14. Constantine the Great
15. De Gaulle, Charles
16. Elizabeth I of England
17. Genghis Khan
18. Haile Selassie
19. Hirohito
20. Hitler, Adolf
21. Lenin, Vladimir
22. Louis XIV
23. Mandela, Nelson
24. Mao Zedong
25. Mussolini, Benito
26. Nehru, Jawaharlal
27. Nkrumah, Kwame
28. Peter I of Russia
29. Qin Shi Huang
30. Saladin
31. Stalin, Joseph
32. Thatcher, Margaret
33. Victoria of the United Kingdom
34. Washington, George

[edit] Religious figures

1. Abraham
2. Buddha
3. Jesus
4. Moses
5. Muhammad

[edit] Revolutionaries and activists

1. Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand
2. Goldman, Emma
3. Joan of Arc
4. Keller, Helen
5. King, Martin Luther, Jr.
6. Mother Teresa
7. Nightingale, Florence
8. Guevara, Che

[edit] History

This section is for events and periods in human history and prehistory. At least five sentences on:

1. History

[edit] Prehistory and ancient world

1. Prehistory
2. Stone Age
3. Bronze Age
4. Iron Age
5. Mesopotamia
6. Ancient Egypt
7. Ancient Greece
8. Roman Empire

[edit] Middle Ages and Early Modern

1. Age of Enlightenment
2. Aztec
3. Byzantine Empire
4. Crusades
5. Holy Roman Empire
6. Hundred Years' War
7. Middle Ages
8. Mongol Empire
9. Ming Dynasty
10. Ottoman Empire
11. Protestant Reformation
12. Renaissance
13. Thirty Years' War
14. Vikings

[edit] Modern

1. American Civil War
2. Apartheid
3. British Empire
4. Cold War
5. French Revolution
6. Great Depression
7. The Holocaust
8. Industrial Revolution
9. Korean War
10. Nazi Germany
11. Russian Revolution (1917)
12. Qing Dynasty
13. Spanish Civil War
14. Treaty of Versailles
15. Vietnam War
16. World War I
17. World War II

[edit] Geography

This section is for geographical concepts and for specific places.

1. Geography
2. Capital
3. Town
4. Continent
5. Desert
6. North Pole
7. Ocean
8. Rainforest
9. River
10. Sea
11. South Pole

[edit] Continents and major regions

At least three sentences on each.

1. Africa
2. Antarctica
3. Asia
4. Europe
5. Middle East
6. North America
7. Oceania
8. South America

[edit] Countries

Eventually, there should be articles on most or all of the 243 countries listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries. However, for the smaller Wikipedias, some of the more high-priority countries to have articles on are:

1. Afghanistan
2. Algeria
3. Argentina
4. Australia
5. Austria
6. Bangladesh
7. Brazil
8. Canada
9. People's Republic of China
10. Democratic Republic of the Congo
11. Cuba
12. Egypt
13. Ethiopia
14. France
15. Germany
16. Greece
17. India
18. Indonesia
19. Iran
20. Iraq
21. Republic of Ireland
22. Israel
23. Italy
24. Japan
25. Mexico
26. Netherlands
27. Nigeria
28. New Zealand
29. Pakistan
30. Poland
31. Russia
32. Portugal
33. Saudi Arabia
34. South Africa
35. South Korea
36. Spain
37. Sudan
38. Switzerland
39. Tanzania
40. Thailand
41. Turkey
42. Ukraine
43. United Arab Emirates
44. United Kingdom
45. United States
46. Vatican City
47. Vietnam
48. Venezuela

[edit] Cities

1. Amsterdam
2. Athens
3. Baghdad
4. Bangkok
5. Beijing
6. Berlin
7. Bogotá
8. Brussels
9. Buenos Aires
10. Cairo
11. Cape Town
12. Damascus
13. Delhi
14. Dhaka
15. Hong Kong
16. Istanbul
17. Jakarta
18. Jerusalem
19. Karachi
20. Kinshasa
21. Kolkata
22. Lagos
23. Los Angeles
24. London
25. Madrid
26. Mecca
27. Mexico City
28. Moscow
29. Mumbai
30. Nairobi
31. New York City
32. Paris
33. Rio de Janeiro
34. Rome
35. Saint Petersburg
36. São Paulo
37. Seoul
38. Shanghai
39. Singapore
40. Sydney
41. Tehran
42. Tokyo
43. Vienna
44. Washington, D.C.

[edit] Bodies of water

1. Amazon River
2. Arctic Ocean
3. Atlantic Ocean
4. Baltic Sea
5. Black Sea
6. Caribbean Sea
7. Caspian Sea
8. Congo River
9. Danube
10. Dead Sea
11. Ganges
12. Great Barrier Reef
13. Great Lakes
14. Indian Ocean
15. Indus River
16. Lake Baikal
17. Lake Tanganyika
18. Lake Victoria
19. Mediterranean Sea
20. Mississippi River
21. Niger River
22. Nile
23. North Sea
24. Pacific Ocean
25. Panama Canal
26. Rhine
27. Suez Canal
28. Southern Ocean
29. Volga River
30. Yangtze River

[edit] Mountains, valleys and deserts

1. Alps
2. Andes
3. Himalayas
4. Mount Kilimanjaro
5. Mount Everest
6. Rocky Mountains
7. Sahara

[edit] Society

1. Society
2. Civilization
3. Education

[edit] Family and relationships

1. Family
2. Child
3. Man
4. Marriage
5. Woman

[edit] Thought, behavior and emotion

1. Behavior
2. Emotion
3. Love
4. Psychology
5. Thought

[edit] Politics

1. Politics
2. Anarchism
3. Colonialism
4. Communism
5. Conservatism
6. Democracy
7. Dictatorship
8. Diplomacy
9. Fascism
10. Globalization
11. Government
12. Ideology
13. Imperialism
14. Liberalism
15. Marxism
16. Monarchy
17. Nationalism
18. Nazism
19. Republic
20. Socialism
21. State
22. Political party
23. Propaganda
24. Terrorism

[edit] Business and economics

1. Economics
2. Capital
3. Capitalism
4. Currency
   1. Euro
   2. Japanese yen
   3. United States dollar
5. Industry
6. Money
7. Tax

[edit] Law

1. Law
2. Constitution

[edit] International organizations

1. African Union
2. Arab League
3. Association of Southeast Asian Nations
4. Commonwealth of Independent States
5. Commonwealth of Nations
6. European Union
7. International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
8. NATO
9. Nobel Prize
10. OPEC
11. United Nations
    1. International Court of Justice
    2. International Monetary Fund
    3. UNESCO
    4. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
    5. World Health Organization
12. World Bank Group
13. World Trade Organization

[edit] War and military

1. Civil war
2. Military
3. Peace
4. War

[edit] Social issues

1. Abortion
2. Capital punishment
3. Human rights
4. Racism
5. Slavery

[edit] Culture

At least three sentences on:

1. Culture
2. Art
   1. Comics
   2. Painting
   3. Photography
   4. Sculpture
      1. Pottery
3. Dance
4. Fashion
5. Theatre
6. Festival de Cannes

[edit] Language and literature

1. Language
2. Specific languages
   1. Arabic
   2. Bengali
   3. Chinese
   4. English
   5. Esperanto
   6. French
   7. German
   8. Greek
   9. Hebrew
   10. Hindi
   11. Japanese
   12. Latin
   13. Persian
   14. Russian
   15. Sanskrit
   16. Spanish
   17. Tamil
   18. Turkish
3. Linguistics
4. Grammar
5. Word
   1. Noun
   2. Verb
6. Alphabet
   1. Arabic alphabet
   2. Chinese character
   3. Cyrillic alphabet
   4. Greek alphabet
   5. Latin alphabet
   6. Letter
7. Literacy
8. Writing
9. Literature
   1. Prose
   2. Fiction
   3. Novel
      1. One Thousand and One Nights
   4. Poetry
      1. Epic of Gilgamesh
      2. Iliad
      3. Mahābhārata
      4. Ramayana

[edit] Architecture and civil engineering

1. Architecture
2. Arch
3. Bridge
4. Canal
5. Dam
6. Dome
7. House
8. Specific structures
   1. Aswan Dam
   2. Burj Dubai
   3. Colosseum
   4. Great Wall of China
   5. Eiffel Tower
   6. Empire State Building
   7. Hagia Sophia
   8. Parthenon
   9. Giza pyramid complex
   10. St. Peter's Basilica
   11. Statue of Liberty
   12. Taj Mahal
9. Pyramid
10. Tower

[edit] Film, radio and television

1. Film
   1. Animation
2. Radio
3. Television

[edit] Music

1. Music
2. Song
3. Specific music genres
   1. Blues
   2. Classical music
      1. Opera
      2. Symphony
   3. Electronic music
   4. Jazz
   5. Reggae
   6. Rhythm and blues
   7. Rock music
4. Specific musical instruments
   1. Drum
   2. Flute
   3. Guitar
   4. Piano
   5. Trumpet
   6. Violin

[edit] Recreation

1. Game
   1. Backgammon
   2. Chess
   3. Go (board game)
2. Gambling
3. Martial arts
   1. Karate
4. Olympic Games
5. Sport
   1. Track and field athletics
   2. Auto racing
   3. Baseball
   4. Basketball
   5. Cricket
   6. Football (soccer)
   7. Golf
   8. Ice hockey
   9. Judo
   10. Tennis
6. Toy

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