Urdu Wikipedia

Favicon of Wikipedia Urdu Wikipedia
اردو ویکیپیڈیا
Screenshot
Main Page of Wikipedia Urdu in April 2015
Website type
Internet encyclopedia
Available inUrdu
OwnerWikimedia Foundation
CreatorsWikimedia Foundation and the Urdu Wiki community
Websiteur.wikipedia.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
Users222,844
Launched27 January 2004; 22 years ago (2004-01-27)
Current statusActive
Content license
Creative Commons Attribution/
Share-Alike 4.0 (most text also dual-licensed under GFDL)
Media licensing varies

The Urdu Wikipedia (Urdu: اردو ویکیپیڈیا, romanized: Urdū Wikīpēḍiya), started in January 2004, is the Standard Urdu-language edition of Wikipedia, a free, open-content encyclopedia. As of 29 October 2026, it has 706,859 articles, 222,844 registered users and 10,716 files, and it is the 27th largest edition of Wikipedia by article count, and ranks 8th in terms of depth among Wikipedias. There were 6 million page views in January 2024. On 7 January 2024, the Urdu Wikipedia became the first South Asian-language Wikipedia to surpass 200,000 articles, and on 12 June 2026, Urdu Wikipedia became the first South Asian-language Wikipedia to cross 500,000 articles.

History

Wikipedia started being multilingual in May 2001. At first, Urdu Wikipedia faced technical problems with the Urdu script font, but now this matter is mostly settled; some unsolved areas remain. Urdu is written in Perso-Arabic script, a right-to-left writing system. As a result, users sometimes need to configure their operating systems and web browsers accordingly.

Currently, Urdu Wikipedia uses the "Urdu Naskh Asiatype" font, which was introduced and is freely distributed by the BBC at BBC Urdu Service website. The font is primarily used for article bodies and headings. Urdu variation of Times New Roman is used for navigation links. Both of these fonts are variations of Naskh style. Some Pakistani variations of complex Nasta'liq script are also supported only as a secondary choice in class definitions of CSS, i.e. if default font is not found on client system, then Nasta'liq script is used. The translation of the Wikipedia interface and project information pages into Urdu is still in progress. Some pages about how to edit have been translated.

In January 2016, Urdu Wikipedia ranked first in the number of articles as compared to other Indian languages. In India, Urdu Wikipedia activities are hosted and promoted by the Dehalvi Wikimedia User Group. The group hosted its first educational program in Deoband in February 2020. Urdu is the second most popular Wikipedia in Pakistan, behind English. It receives approximately 2 million pageviews in the country, and around 610 thousand in India as of November 2022.

In India, Urdu tops the list of constitutionally recognized languages in terms of the number of articles available on Wikipedia.

Milestones timeline

DateMilestone
6 May 2004100
19 June 20061,000
13 August 20062,000
15 March 20075,000
29 March 200910,000
28 October 201220,000
9 April 201440,000
24 April 201450,000
12 August 201575,000
29 December 2015100,000
December 2017125,000
23 November 2019150,000
7 January 2024200,000
19 April 2026300,000
12 May 2026400,000
12 June 2026500,000

Users and editors

Urdu Wikipedia statistics
Number of user accountsNumber of articlesNumber of filesNumber of administrators
222844706859107169

Urdu Wikipedia has approximately 320 contributors per month. Most users are from Pakistan, although there are many users from India as well. There are also notable users from Saudi Arabia. Much like the rest of Indic languages, Urdu suffers from an acute shortage of contributors due to various reasons. Ahmed Nisar, a contributor to Urdu Wikipedia from India, claims that some of the reasons are the preference of the people for English-language media, as well as the lack of Urdu-speaking experts which are well versed in various aspects of current affairs.

Differences from Hindi Wikipedia

Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi are considered to be standardized registers of the Hindustani language. The difference between Urdu and Hindi Wikipedia in terms of the content's language is mostly in their writing systems and the literary language from which each of the variety derives their non-colloquial vocabulary. Urdu is written in Nastaliq-style of the Perso-Arabic alphabet and derives a significant amount of formal vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and to a lesser extent from Turkic (Chagatai, etc.). Hindi is written in the standardized-Devanagari alphabet of the Nagari script and derives a significant amount of formal vocabulary from Sanskrit majorly in tatsama form.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "کراچی میں وکی پیڈیا صارفین کا تاریخی اجلاس" کراچی میں وکی پیڈیا صارفین کا تاریخی اجلاس [Historic meeting of Wikipedia users in Karachi] (in Urdu). Karachi: Karachi Updates. 19 October 2009. Archived from the original on 30 April 2014. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
  2. ↑ "Wikipedians meetup in Pakistan" (in Urdu). Karachi: News Urdu. 19 October 2009. Archived from the original on 23 October 2009. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
  3. ↑ "List of Wikipedias". Meta. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  4. ↑ "Wikistats - Statistics For Wikimedia Projects". Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  5. ↑ صفحۂ اول. BBC Urdu. Retrieved 28 September 2013.
  6. ↑ Muralidhara Khajane (19 January 2016). "Kannada Wikipedia not on top of the charts". The Hindu. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  7. ↑ 2019-2020 Annual report for the Dehalvi Wikimedia User Group
  8. ↑ "Wikistats - Statistics For Wikimedia Projects". Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  9. ↑ Chohan, Muhammad Arshad (17 April 2025). "اردو ہندوستانی تہذیب کی بہترین مثال ہے: انڈین سپریم کورٹ کا تاریخی فیصلہ" [Urdu is the finest example of Indian culture: Historic verdict by the Supreme Court of India]. Independent Urdu (in Urdu). Retrieved 19 May 2025.
  10. ↑ m:Wikimedia News
  11. ↑ Wikipedia:Milestone statistics
  12. ↑ Muzammiluddin, Syed (28 June 2015). ""My community's goals drive me": Tahir Mahmood". Diff. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  13. ↑ Muzammiluddin, Syed (13 October 2015). "Indian-language projects depend on each other: Ahmed Nisar". Diff. Retrieved 5 November 2022.