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 compiles the most popular Wikipedia article 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

Ceuta

Spanish autonomous city in northwestern Africa

Ceuta is an autonomous city of Spain on the North African coast. Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Ceuta is one of the special territories of members of the European Economic Area.

Read on Wikipedia →

546,834 views yesterday

OBSCURE WIKIPEDIA ENTRY OF THE DAY Engagement ring

An engagement ring, also known as a betrothal ring, is a ring indicating that the person wearing it is engaged to be married, especially in Western cultures. A ring is presented as an engagement gift by a partner to their prospective spouse when they propose marriage to represent a formal agreement to future marriage. In most Western countries, engagement rings are usually worn only by women, and they are typically adorned with diamonds. In some countries, partners wear matching rings, and engagement rings may also be used as wedding rings. In the Anglosphere, the ring is customarily worn on the left hand ring finger, but customs vary across the world. Continue reading

WIKIPOPs BY DAY

Date	Article	Category	Views
Jul 30	Matthias Jaissle ·day	German football manager (born 1988)	231,128
Jul 29	Glen Hansard ·day	Irish musician (1970–2026)	657,637
Jul 28	Spider-Man: Brand New Day ·day	2026 Marvel Studios film	361,888
Jul 27	Bill Oddie ·day	English conservationist, entertainer and ornithologist (1941–2026)	341,705
Jul 26	David Jonsson ·day	British actor (born 1993)	340,693
Jul 25	Pralhad Joshi ·day	Indian politician (born 1962)	756,586
Jul 24	LeBron James ·day	American basketball player (born 1984)	270,930
Jul 23	Jana Nayagan ·day	2026 Indian film by H. Vinoth	178,887
Jul 22	ChatGPT ·day	Generative AI chatbot by OpenAI	153,090
Jul 21	Kaylee Hottle ·day	American actress (d. 2026)	508,898

View full archive (565 articles) →

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 compiles the most popular Wikipedia article 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.