In 2021, readers of English Wikipedia were most focused on notable deaths, American politics and political institutions, sports, and topics inspired by popular entertainment. It was the same story last year. And yet, none of the most popular Wikipedia pages in 2021 were related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to Quartz’s analysis of Wikipedia’s statistics.
The page with highest daily visitor count was Prince Philip’s with 3.87 million on April 9, the day he died. Readers in June, July, and August sought information on the big sporting events postponed from the year before, including pages associated with the Tokyo Olympics, and the UEFA Euro 2020. In September and October, top pages were overwhelmingly related to Netflix’s hit show Squid Game.
We’ve pulled together the most-read English-language Wikipedia page for every day of 2021 excluding the Main Page and the Search page, which often occupy the top spot. This article will be updated daily until the end of the year. Let’s take a look:
Squid Game, the UEFA Euros, and Taliban were among some of the most-visited Wikipedia pages in 2021
We’ve labeled page’s with similar reasons for popularity the same way. For instance, deaths are denoted by a ☠️, Google Doodles are indicated with a 🎨, and court cases are shown with ⚖️.
The calendar is updated daily, check back tomorrow to see what becomes today’s most popular page.