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[[Wikipedia]] is a [[compendium]] of the world's [[knowledge]]. If you know what you are looking for, type it into Wikipedia's [[Help:Searching|search]] box. If, however, you need a bird's eye view of what Wikipedia has to offer, see its main contents pages below, which in turn list more specific pages.

== Featured content ==
[[File:Cscr-featured.svg|left|50px]]

[[Wikipedia:Featured content|Featured content]] represents the best of Wikipedia, and has undergone a thorough review process to ensure that it meets the highest encyclopedic standards. Presented by type:
{{hlist|[[Wikipedia:Featured articles|Featured articles]]|[[Wikipedia:Featured lists|Featured lists]]|[[Wikipedia:Featured pictures|Featured pictures]]|[[Wikipedia:Featured topics|Featured topics]]}}

== Main subject classifications ==
Wikipedia's main navigation subsystems ([[Wikipedia:Contents/Overviews|overviews]], [[Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines|outlines]], [[Wikipedia:Contents/Lists|lists]], [[Wikipedia:Contents/Portals|portals]], [[Wikipedia:Contents/Glossaries|glossaries]], [[Wikipedia:Contents/Categories|categories]], and [[Wikipedia:Contents/Indices|indices]]) are each divided into the following subject classifications:
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Reference|Reference works]] &ndash; compendiums of information, usually of a specific type, compiled in a book for ease of reference. That is, the information is intended to be quickly found when needed.  
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Culture and the arts|Culture]] &ndash; encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities and habits of the individuals in these groups.
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Geography and places|Geography]] &ndash; field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of the Earth and planets.  
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Health and fitness|Health]] &ndash; state of physical, mental and social well-being.
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/History and events|History]] &ndash; the past as it is described in written documents, and the study thereof.
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Human activities|Human activities]] &ndash; the various activities done by people. For instance, it includes leisure, entertainment, industry, recreation, war, and exercise. 
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Mathematics and logic|Mathematics]] &ndash; the study of topics such as quantity (numbers), structure, space, and change. It evolved through the use of abstraction and logical reasoning, from counting, calculation, measurement, and the systematic study of the shapes and motions of physical objects.
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Natural and physical sciences|Natural science]] &ndash; branch of science concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. 
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/People and self|People]] &ndash; plurality of persons considered as a whole, as is the case with an ethnic group or nation.
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Philosophy and thinking|Philosophy]] &ndash; study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. 
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Religion and belief systems|Religions]] &ndash; social-cultural systems of designated behaviors and practices, morals, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements.  
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Society and social sciences|Society]] &ndash; group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum/total of such relationships among its constituent of members.  
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Technology and applied sciences|Technology]] &ndash; the sum of techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation. 

== Curated article collections ==

=== Overview articles ===
Overview articles summarize in prose a broad topic like [[biology]], and also have illustrations and links to subtopics like [[cell biology]], biographies like [[Carl Linnaeus]], and other related articles like [[Human Genome Project]].
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Overviews]] lists overview articles from covered fields in a single page.

=== Outline pages ===
Outline pages have [[tree structure|trees]] of topics in an [[Outline (list)|outline format]], which in turn are linked to further outlines and articles providing more detail.  Outlines show how important subtopics relate to each other based on how they are arranged in the tree, and they are useful as a more condensed, non-prose alternative to overview articles.
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines]] is a comprehensive list of "Outline of __" pages, organized by subject. It is itself an outline, that links (almost) exclusively to other outlines.
* [[Outline of academic disciplines]] covers subjects studied in college or university and provides links to prose overview articles and their corresponding outlines.
* [[Outline of knowledge]] is the top-level outline, its subject being the broadest one of all. It is the ancestor of all other outlines, and they branch out from it, in successive levels.

=== List of articles every Wikipedia should have ===
{{main|meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have}}
These articles are considered the foundation that every Wikipedia should build upon.
* [[meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have]] - 1,000 most important articles
* [[meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have/Expanded]] - 10,000 most important articles

=== Vital articles ===
{{main|Wikipedia:Vital articles}}
Vital articles are lists of subjects for which the English Wikipedia should have corresponding high-quality articles. They serve as [[Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:Vital articles|centralized watchlists]] to track the quality status of Wikipedia's most important articles and to give editors guidance on which articles to prioritize for improvement.
* [[Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/1|Vital articles level 1]] – 10 most important articles
* [[Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/2|Vital articles level 2]] – 100 most important articles
* [[Wikipedia:Vital articles|Vital articles level 3]] – 1,000 most important articles
* [[Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4|Vital articles level 4]] – 10,000 most important articles
* [[Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5|Vital articles level 5]] – 50,000 most important articles

== Third-party classification systems ==
Various third-party classification systems have been mapped to Wikipedia articles, which can be accessed from these pages:
* [[Library of Congress Classification]]
* [[List of Dewey Decimal classes]]
* [[Figurative system of human knowledge]] (''[[Encyclopédie]]'')
* [[Outline of Roget's Thesaurus|Outline of ''Roget's Thesaurus'']]
* ''[[Propædia]]'' (''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'')
* [[Tree of knowledge system]]
* [[Universal Decimal Classification#UDC_outline|Universal Decimal Classification]]

==Reference collections==
Wikipedia has several types of pages which provide content in a non-prose form, for reference purposes.

=== List pages ===
List 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 be 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:
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Lists]] – A limited single-page collection of lists and lists of lists
* [[List of lists of lists]] – A broad single-page collection of lists of lists
* [[:Category:Lists]] – Browse lists comprehensively via the multi-page Wikipedia category system

=== Timelines ===
[[Timelines]] list events chronologically, sometimes including links to articles with more detail.  There are several ways to find timelines:
* [[List of timelines]] has a long single-page collection
* [[:Category:Wikipedia timelines]] has a comprehensive multi-page collection via the Wikipedia category system

Of particular interest may be:
* [[List of centuries]]
* [[List of decades]]
* [[List of historical anniversaries]]&nbsp;– e.g. events on January 1 of any year
* [[:Category:Graphical timelines]]&nbsp;– graphical timelines in the category and subcategories, arranged alphabetically

=== Glossaries ===
[[Glossaries]] are lists of terms with definitions. Wikipedia includes hundreds of alphabetical glossaries; they can be found two ways:
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Glossaries]] – A single-page list of glossaries
* [[:Category:Wikipedia glossaries]] – Browse glossaries comprehensively via the Wikipedia category system

=== Bibliographies ===
[[Bibliographies]] list sources on a given topic, for verification or further reading outside Wikipedia:
* [[:Wikipedia:List of bibliographies]] is a list of bibliographies
* [[:Category:Wikipedia bibliographies]] has a complete multi-page listing of bibliographies on Wikipedia

=== Category:Discographies ===
[[Discographies]] catalog the sound recordings of individual artists or groups.
* [[:Category:Discographies]] has a complete multi-page listing

==Special format collections==
=== Portals ===
[[Wikipedia:Portal|Portals]] contain [[Wikipedia:Featured articles|featured article]]s and [[Wikipedia:Featured images|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:Contents/Portals]] – A single-page list of portals
* [[:Category:Portals]] – Browse portals comprehensively via the Wikipedia category system.

=== Spoken articles ===
Growing collections of Wikipedia articles are starting to become available as spoken word recordings as well.
* [[:Category:Spoken articles]]&nbsp;– an organized list of all spoken articles
* [[Wikipedia:Spoken articles]]&nbsp;– some general information about the spoken article technology

== Collections of articles ==
=== Category system ===
Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Categorization|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:
* [[:Category:Main topic classifications]]&nbsp;– probably what you are looking for: Arts, History, Technology, etc.
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/Categories]]&nbsp;– a hand-crafted list of first- and second-level topic categories

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===
Wikipedia's alphabetical article indexes
* [[Special:Allpages]] lists all of the current pages in Wikipedia.
* [[Wikipedia:Contents/A–Z index]] provides an easy way to skip to a particular part of the alphabet in the list of all articles.
* Lists of alphabetical indexes
** [[:Category:Wikipedia indexes]]&nbsp;– alphabetical list of topic indexes
** [[Wikipedia:Contents/Indices]]&nbsp;– indexes sorted by topic area

===Current history entries===
You can help us keep Wikipedia up to date! The list below is for encyclopedia entries that describe and pertain to events happening on a current basis. 
* [[{{CURRENTYEAR}}]]&nbsp;– major events this year
* [[{{CURRENTYEAR}} in politics and government]] &nbsp;– major current political news and developments
* [[{{CURRENTYEAR}} in science and technology]] &nbsp;– major current news on science findings and technology developments
* [[Portal:Current events]]&nbsp;– featured current events and related project activities
* [[:Category:{{CURRENTYEAR}}-related timelines]]
* [[:Category:{{CURRENTYEAR}} by country]]
* [[Deaths in {{CURRENTYEAR}}]]&nbsp;– lists people who died this year
* [[:Category:Contemporary history by country]]

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== Collections of articles by popularity ==

* [[Wikipedia:Top 5000 pages]] (of the last week)
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