aid: wikipedia name: Wikipedia / MediaWiki description: >- Wikipedia is the free, multilingual online encyclopedia operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. The platform exposes its content and structured data through several public APIs: the original MediaWiki Action API (action=query|edit|parse|upload), the MediaWiki Core REST API (page CRUD, search, transforms), the Wikimedia REST API (page summaries, mobile HTML, math, citation, reading lists, recommendations), the Wikidata Query Service SPARQL endpoint (structured knowledge graph queries), and the Wikimedia Enterprise APIs (commercial Snapshot, On-demand, Realtime). All free APIs are governed by the Wikimedia API usage guidelines: contactable User-Agent, serial requests, maxlag for bots. url: https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg/120px-Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg.png specificationVersion: '0.20' created: '2026-05-28' modified: '2026-05-29' x-source: public-apis/public-apis x-type: opensource x-category: Open Data x-tier: 1 x-tier-reason: Most prominent open-knowledge API in the world; non-profit Wikimedia Foundation tags: - Open Data - Public APIs - Open Knowledge - Encyclopedia - Knowledge Graph - Open Source - Non-Profit apis: - name: MediaWiki Action API description: >- The original programmatic interface to MediaWiki, exposed at /w/api.php on every MediaWiki installation. Operations are dispatched via the action= query parameter (query, parse, edit, upload, login, patrol, ...). JSON is the recommended format. Primary write surface for Wikimedia projects. humanURL: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page baseURL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php tags: - Action API - Read - Write - Edit - Search properties: - type: Documentation url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page - type: Sandbox url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox - type: OpenAPI url: openapi/wikipedia-mediawiki-action-api-openapi.yaml - type: Tutorials url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Tutorial - type: Etiquette url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Etiquette - name: MediaWiki Core REST API description: >- Modern REST surface on every MediaWiki installation under /w/rest.php/v1/. Provides page CRUD, full-text search, file metadata, history, individual revision retrieval, revision comparison, and wikitext <-> HTML transforms. Mirrored at api.wikimedia.org/core/v1/wikipedia/{lang}/. humanURL: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:REST_API baseURL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/rest.php/v1 tags: - REST API - Core - Pages - Search - Transforms properties: - type: Documentation url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:REST_API/Reference - type: OpenAPI url: openapi/wikipedia-mediawiki-core-rest-openapi.yaml - type: APIPortal url: https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/Core_REST_API - name: Wikimedia REST API v1 description: >- Caching-optimized REST API for high-volume, anonymous read traffic. Provides page summaries, mobile-tailored HTML, media lists, citation extraction, math rendering, content transforms, page recommendations, and reading lists. Limit clients to no more than 200 requests/s and provide a contactable User-Agent. humanURL: https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/ baseURL: https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1 tags: - REST API - Cached - Summaries - Mobile - Citation - Math properties: - type: Documentation url: https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/ - type: OpenAPI url: openapi/wikipedia-rest-v1-openapi.yaml - type: Specification url: https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/?spec - name: Wikidata Query Service (SPARQL) description: >- SPARQL 1.1 endpoint for Wikidata - the structured knowledge graph behind Wikipedia infoboxes, Commons captions, and 100M+ items. Single endpoint /sparql accepts SELECT, ASK, CONSTRUCT, DESCRIBE queries. 60s query timeout, 5 concurrent queries per IP. Has a 'main' / 'scholarly' graph split available at separate hostnames for heavy workloads. humanURL: https://query.wikidata.org baseURL: https://query.wikidata.org tags: - SPARQL - Knowledge Graph - Linked Data - Wikidata properties: - type: Documentation url: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:SPARQL_query_service - type: OpenAPI url: openapi/wikipedia-wikidata-sparql-openapi.yaml - type: QueryHelp url: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:SPARQL_query_service/Wikidata_Query_Help - type: Editor url: https://query.wikidata.org - name: Wikimedia Enterprise API description: >- Commercial, SLA-backed Wikimedia data feed run by Wikimedia LLC (the Foundation's subsidiary). Provides Snapshot (bulk twice-monthly or daily), On-demand (per-article structured contents), and Realtime (streaming updates) APIs. Free developer tier includes 5,000 on-demand requests/month and 15 snapshot/month. Paid plans add unlimited usage and realtime streams. humanURL: https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/ baseURL: https://api.enterprise.wikimedia.com tags: - Enterprise - Commercial - Snapshot - On-Demand - Realtime - Structured Contents properties: - type: Documentation url: https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/docs/ - type: OpenAPI url: openapi/wikipedia-wikimedia-enterprise-openapi.yaml - type: DataDictionary url: https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/docs/data-dictionary/ - type: Pricing url: https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/pricing/ - type: SDK title: Python SDK url: https://github.com/wikimedia-enterprise/wme-sdk-python - type: SDK title: Go SDK url: https://github.com/wikimedia-enterprise/wme-sdk-go - type: Postman url: https://github.com/wikimedia-enterprise/postman common: - type: Website url: https://www.wikipedia.org - type: APIPortal url: https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page - type: APICatalog url: https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/API_catalog - type: Documentation url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page - type: Foundation url: https://wikimediafoundation.org/ - type: Governance url: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation - type: License url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ title: CC BY-SA 4.0 (article content) - type: License url: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ title: CC0 1.0 (Wikidata) - type: Policy url: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Wikimedia_Foundation_API_Usage_Guidelines title: API Usage Guidelines - type: PublicAPIsListing url: https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis - type: GitHubOrganization url: https://github.com/wikimedia - type: GitHubOrganization url: https://github.com/wikimedia-enterprise title: Wikimedia Enterprise GitHub Org - type: GitHubOrganization url: https://github.com/wmde title: Wikimedia Deutschland (Wikidata) GitHub Org - type: SourceCode url: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/ title: Wikimedia Gerrit (canonical source) - type: Status url: https://www.wikimediastatus.net/ - type: BulkDownload url: https://dumps.wikimedia.org/ title: Wikimedia Database Dumps - type: Stream url: https://stream.wikimedia.org/v2/stream title: EventStreams (SSE) - type: Tools title: MCP Server (Wikipedia, Python, Rudra-ravi) url: https://github.com/Rudra-ravi/wikipedia-mcp - type: Tools title: MCP Server (Wikipedia, TypeScript, timjuenemann) url: https://github.com/timjuenemann/wikipedia-mcp - type: Tools title: MCP Server (Wikipedia, .NET, ajayindfw) url: https://github.com/ajayindfw/WikipediaMcpServer - type: Tools title: MCP Server (Wikipedia, Vercel HTTP, Ravishka17) url: https://github.com/Ravishka17/Wikipedia-MCP - type: Tools title: MCP Server (Wikipedia caching+batch, 1999AZZAR) url: https://github.com/1999AZZAR/wikipedia-mcp-server - type: Tools title: MCP Server (MediaWiki multi-wiki, shiquda) url: https://github.com/shiquda/mediawiki-mcp-server - type: Tools title: MCP Server (MediaWiki search+edit, olgasafonova) url: https://github.com/olgasafonova/mediawiki-mcp-server - type: Tools title: MCP Server (MediaWiki authoring, mbruton) url: https://github.com/mbruton/mediawiki-mcp - type: Tools title: MCP Server (Wikidata, Wikimedia Deutschland) url: https://github.com/wmde/WikidataMCP - type: Tools title: MCP Server (Wikidata SPARQL, cyanheads) url: https://github.com/cyanheads/wikidata-mcp-server - type: Plans url: plans/wikipedia-plans-pricing.yml - type: RateLimits url: rate-limits/wikipedia-rate-limits.yml - type: FinOps url: finops/wikipedia-finops.yml - type: NaftikoCapability url: capabilities/wikipedia-knowledge-research.yaml - type: NaftikoCapability url: capabilities/wikipedia-content-authoring.yaml - type: NaftikoCapability url: capabilities/wikipedia-knowledge-graph.yaml - type: NaftikoCapability url: capabilities/wikipedia-enterprise-snapshot.yaml - type: Rules url: rules/wikipedia-spectral-rules.yml - type: Vocabulary url: vocabulary/wikipedia-vocabulary.yaml - type: JsonLD url: json-ld/wikipedia-context.jsonld features: - name: 300+ Languages description: Wikipedia exists in over 300 languages; every language edition exposes the same API surfaces under {lang}.wikipedia.org. - name: Page Summaries description: Short, plain-text extracts plus thumbnail and Wikidata QID via the /page/summary/{title} endpoint - widely used by mobile clients, voice assistants, and search engines. - name: Wikitext To HTML Transforms description: Convert wikitext to rendered HTML (and back) on-demand via /transform/wikitext/to/html/{title} - the same engine that powers VisualEditor. - name: SPARQL Over A Public Knowledge Graph description: Query 100M+ Wikidata items with full SPARQL 1.1 including federated SERVICE clauses, label resolution, and geo queries. - name: Real-Time Edit Stream description: Server-Sent Events stream at stream.wikimedia.org/v2/stream emits every edit, log, and revision-create across all projects. - name: Bulk Database Dumps description: Full periodic XML and SQL dumps of every Wikimedia project at dumps.wikimedia.org - the canonical bulk-research format. - name: Cached Anonymous Reads At 200 RPS description: The REST API v1 is heavily Varnish-cached, allowing anonymous reads up to ~200 requests/s per client with a contactable User-Agent. - name: OAuth 2.0 Write Access description: Modern write access (page edits, file uploads) is authenticated via OAuth 2.0 bearer tokens issued at meta.wikimedia.org. useCases: - name: AI Grounding And RAG description: Ground LLM responses in encyclopedic content via page summaries, full HTML, or Wikimedia Enterprise structured contents - the primary use case for the proliferating community MCP servers. - name: Voice Assistants And Smart Speakers description: Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant resolve open-domain questions through Wikipedia page summaries and Wikidata. - name: Encyclopedia Mirrors And Offline Reading description: Kiwix and the Wikipedia Apps consume the REST API plus periodic dumps to ship offline-readable copies to schools and constrained-connectivity regions. - name: Knowledge Graph Research description: Researchers query the Wikidata SPARQL endpoint to study entity relationships, citation networks, and cross-language alignment. - name: Bot Workflows (Anti-Vandalism, Citation, Categorization) description: Tens of thousands of community bots use the Action API to revert vandalism, fix references, and maintain categories. - name: News Aggregation description: Realtime EventStream of edits feeds breaking-news detection - the In-The-News template on Wikipedia main page is itself a data product. - name: Linked Data Publishing description: Wikidata is the open-license source-of-truth for identifiers (ISBN, ORCID, GeoNames, MusicBrainz) used across linked-data publishers. integrations: - name: Wikidata description: Structured-data sister project; every Wikipedia page links to a Wikidata QID consumable via the SPARQL endpoint. - name: Wikimedia Commons description: Shared media repository accessed via the same Action API at commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php. - name: schema.org description: Page summaries align with schema.org/Article; Wikidata properties map to schema.org types. - name: DBpedia description: Community knowledge graph built by extracting structured data from Wikipedia infoboxes. - name: Google Knowledge Graph description: Major downstream consumer of Wikipedia + Wikidata content for search result panels. - name: ChatGPT / Claude / Gemini description: All major LLMs were pre-trained on Wikipedia and retrieve via REST API or community MCPs at inference time. - name: VisualEditor / Parsoid description: WYSIWYG editor and the parser that powers the Core REST transforms. solutions: - name: Open-Knowledge Foundation description: A non-profit, donor-funded resource serving 1.5B+ unique devices/month while keeping every byte free to redistribute under CC BY-SA / CC0. - name: Commercial High-Volume Tier description: Wikimedia Enterprise (Wikimedia LLC) offers SLA-backed Snapshot, On-demand, and Realtime APIs - the same content packaged for AI labs, search engines, and content platforms that need predictable throughput and update cadence. maintainers: - FN: Kin Lane email: kin@apievangelist.com