Overview
- Launched on January 15, 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger as a complement to Nupedia, the project saw Sanger depart within a year.
- Since 2003 it has been run by the donation‑funded Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco, and it remains ad‑free.
- It now hosts roughly 63–65 million articles across more than 300 languages, built by volunteers over billions of edits.
- Editors report AI both relies on Wikipedia for training and reduces direct visits, with Spanish‑language traffic down about 50% over two years while English is down about 10%.
- To mark the milestone, Wikipedia is hosting a virtual community celebration with games, guests and prizes.