Free online crowdsourced encyclopedia Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteer editors, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001, Wikipedia has been hosted since 2003 by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization funded mainly by donations from readers. Wikipedia is the largest and most read reference work in history. Wikipedia's most-read article for 2 days in a row: 2,319,211 views in all, peaking at 1,160,743 on January 18, 2017. Wed, Jan 18: 1,160,743 views Thu, Jan 19: 1,158,468 views Wiki link