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Explore Wikipedia's Contents
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There are two ways to look things up in Wikipedia: by searching or by browsing.
Article collections editOverview articles editOverview articles summarize broad topics like language, speech, or the human body. Through the wikilinks on these pages it is possible to navigate to articles narrower in scope, such as cell biology or Carl Linneaus. Overview articles aim to give a broad introduction and can be a good place to start leaning about a topic. Vital articles editVital articles are lists of subjects for which Wikipedia should have corresponding high-quality articles. They serve as centralized watchlists to track the status of Wikipedia's most important articles.
Classification systems editKnowledge can be ordered in many different ways, each classification with their own pros and cons, from heirarchical systems to interconnected webs of knowledge. Wikipedia employs and number of different classifications to help you navigate, a short list of different systems follows: Outline pages editOutline pages have trees of links in a heirarchical format. These outlines show a visualization of how topics relate to each other, and can be useful as condensed alternative to overview articles.
Third-party classification systems editVarious third-party classification systems have been mapped to Wikipedia articles, which can be accessed from these pages:
List pages editList pages enumerate items of a particular type, such as the List of sovereign states or List of South Africans. Wikipedia has "lists of lists" when there are too many items to fit on a single page, when the items can sorted in different ways, or as a way of navigating lists on a topic (for example Lists of countries and territories or Lists of people). There are several ways to find lists:
Timelines editTimelines are chronological lists of events, often including links to more detailed articles. There are several ways to find timelines:
Of particular interest may be:
Category system editWikipedia's collection of category pages is a classified index system. It is automatically generated from category tags at the bottoms of articles and most other pages. Nearly all of the articles available so far on the website can be found through these subject indexes. If you are simply looking to browse articles by topic, there are three top-level pages to choose from:
For biographies, see Category:People. Category:Contents is technically at the top of the category hierarchy, but contains many categories useful to editors but not readers. Special:Categories lists every category alphabetically. Alphabetical lists of articles editWikipedia's alphabetical article indexes
Special format collections editPortals editPortals include featured articles, images, news, categories, excerpts of key articles, links to related portals, and to-do lists for editors. There are two ways to find portals:
Wikipedia books editWikipedia books are collections of Wikipedia articles that can be viewed, downloaded, or printed into a book. They provide a roadmap for a course of study in a particular subject.
Glossaries editGlossaries are lists of terms with definitions. Wikipedia includes hundreds of alphabetical glossaries; they can be found two ways:
Spoken articles editGrowing collections of Wikipedia articles are starting to become available as spoken word recordings. Collections of articles by quality or popularity editFeatured content editFeatured content is the best Wikipedia has to offer, via vigorous peer review. Presented by type: Most popular articles edit
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