Wikipedia differs from printed references in important ways. It is continually created and updated, with articles on new events appearing within minutes rather than months or years. Because everyone can improve it, it is more comprehensive than any other encyclopedia.
Since its creation on January 15, 2001, Wikipedia has grown into the world's largest reference website, attracting 1.7 billion unique-device visitors monthly as of November 2021. It currently has more than fifty-nine million articles in more than 300 languages, including 6,534,664 articles in English, and growing daily by an average of 587 new articles.
The English version of the website averages about 255 million pageviews a day. I am one of the 255 millions, sometimes several times a day!
The name "Wikipedia" was suggested by its co-founder Sanger on 11 January 2001 as a portmanteau of the words wiki (Hawaiian for "quick") and encyclopedia. I've just looked this up for you on Wikipedia so you don't have to, but if you want to double-check on it, click here.
