So what's this WikiPop thing?

It's a proxy for what's going on in the world seen through the lens of Wikipedia. WikiPop picks one of the most popular Wikipedia articles each day and keeps an archive of it. There's a daily email and an RSS feed.

Wouldn't there be repeat articles some days?

Yeah, that can happen. To keep things interesting, an article won't be featured if it was already the top article in the last 30 days.

Do you store this data in a database?

Actually, no! WikiPop runs entirely off a flat JSON file, a cron job, and static HTML.

Are you associated with Wikipedia?

No, but I'm an everyday user of it and a donor.

What Wikipedia page was everyone looking at yesterday?

Comic illustration of a woman with glasses

Sunny Ozell

American singer-songwriter (born 1978)

Sunny Ozell, Lady Stewart, is an American singer and songwriter who resides in Los Angeles, California. She was married to the English actor Sir Patrick Stewart from 2013 until his death in 2026.

Why the popularity?

Patrick Stewart, TV's Captain Picard and the movies' Professor X, died at 86, leaving his wife, singer-songwriter Sunny Ozell.
They met in 2008, when she was waiting tables at a Brooklyn restaurant and he was starring in Macbeth nearby.
Years later, Ian McKellen officiated their wedding beside Lake Tahoe.
Hugh Jackman called him "a tremendous friend and man" and said he'd miss him "all of my days."

Read on Wikipedia →

488,907 views yesterday

OBSCURE WIKIPEDIA ENTRY OF THE DAY PS General Slocum

PS General Slocum was an American sidewheel passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn, New York, in 1891. During her service history, she was involved in a number of mishaps, including multiple groundings and collisions. Continue reading

WIKIPOPs BY DAY

Date	Article	Category	Views
Oct 29	Patrick Stewart ·day	English actor (1940–2026)	2,356,552
Oct 28	Susan Saint James ·day	American actress (1946–2026)	200,179
Oct 27	2026 Israeli legislative election ·day		438,729
Oct 26	Eric Bauza ·day	Canadian voice actor (1979–2026)	511,715
Oct 25	2026 Brazilian general election ·day		271,783
Oct 24	UFC 333 ·day	Mixed martial arts event in 2026	224,691
Oct 23	Clayface (film) ·day	2026 DC Studios film	264,281
Oct 22	Tom Skerritt ·day	American actor (1933–2026)	371,141
Oct 21	PHP2Shell ·day	2026 software security vulnerability	238,212
Oct 20	Kim Jong Un ·day	Supreme Leader of North Korea since 2011	321,739

View full archive (663 articles) → Wikipedia's most-viewed of 2026 →

FAQ

So what's this WikiPop thing?: It’s a proxy for what's going on in the world seen through the lens of Wikipedia. WikiPop picks one of the most popular Wikipedia articles each day and keeps an archive of it. There’s a daily email and an RSS feed.
Who made this?: Josh Sowin made this, inspired by Hatnote and LonelyWiki. I have a newsletter called Rabbitholes which explore more obscure things (including obscure Wikipedia articles) but I was also interested in what was trending on Wikipedia because I rarely have a pulse on it. Read more about the behind the scenes creation of Wikipop here (link coming soon).
Wouldn't there be repeat articles some days?: Yeah, that can happen. To keep things interesting, an article won't be featured if it was already the top article in the last 30 days.
Do you store this data in a database?: Actually, no! I started this with the goal of making an auto-updated feed of popular Wikipedia articles WITHOUT a database. I could have used Firebase or Supabase but I’ve already done that before; what I haven’t done is make a website that is dynamically generated without one.
How do you get the data?: From the Wikimedia REST API.
How does it update and keep an archive without a database?: I ended up using two main methods: JSON and GitHub Actions. The site runs off a flat JSON file, a cron job, and static HTML. Every day, a GitHub Action fetches the top articles from the Wikimedia REST API, stores the result in a JSON file, compiles the static pages, and commits them back to the repo. GitHub Pages serves it from there. What a world.
This design feels familiar in some way?: Yes, it should! I wanted to make the design less “every current boring website on the internet” and more “fun internet of the past” … as I was thinking about this, I was looking at my art studio mural and saw Image Duplicator by Lichtenstein and started playing in that direction. The background dots were done in pure CSS and adjusted to perfection using WikiPop’s Background Adjuster created for this singular purpose.
Why did you remove the .xxx page?: Because .xxx is, surprisingly, often the most popular page on Wikipedia. My best guess is that people are searching for "xxx" on Google, and either they're not paying attention to the results or get nerd-sniped that there's a whole top-level domain dedicated to that. Either way, it's not interesting on a daily basis because it's always up there, so I filtered it out.
Are you associated with Wikipedia?: No, but I’m an everyday user of it and a donor, and they would love for you to be, too! Back when it first started I thought “there is no way this could work” but somehow it does and that’s very encouraging. It’s a free wealth of knowledge available to the world without ads. Incredible. Nothing like this has ever been created or available in human history.