Chinese Wikipedia
Chinese-language edition of Wikipedia
The Chinese Wikipedia (traditional Chinese: 中文維基百科; simplified Chinese: 中文维基百科; pinyin: Zhōngwén Wéijī Bǎikē) is the written vernacular Chinese edition of Wikipedia. It was created on 11 May 2001. It is one of multiple projects supported by the Wikimedia Foundation.
The Chinese Wikipedia has been blocked in mainland China since May 2015. Nonetheless, the Chinese Wikipedia is still one of the top ten most active versions of Wikipedia by number of edits and number of editors, due to contributions from users from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Chinese diaspora. Readers from Taiwan and Hong Kong contribute most of the page views of the Chinese Wikipedia.
Despite being censored in mainland China, and as VPNs are normally not allowed to edit Wikipedia, Wikipedia administrators from China have permitted IP block exemption for a select number of mainland users. Such users are recruited to change the editorial content on Wikipedia in support of China's viewpoint and/or to support the election of pro-Chinese government administrators on Wikipedia, with the aim of gaining control of Wikipedia as part of the Chinese Communist Party's coordinated efforts to push their preferred narrative on platforms that have respected worldwide credibility. There has also been an exodus of volunteer editors leaving Baidu Baike, a domestic competitor beset by problems of self-censorship and commercialization, to join Chinese Wikipedia because the "contributors wanted the privilege of working on a higher-quality internet encyclopedia" that also "carries a great deal of international power". Observers have suggested that such moves are not just due to patriotic mainlanders but a "larger structural coordinated strategy the government has to manipulate these platforms" beside Wikipedia, such as Twitter and Facebook.
“Chinese Wikipedia” enters the record as chinese-language edition of Wikipedia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chinese, Wikipedia and Chinese-language can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Chinese Wikipedia” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Chinese, Wikipedia and Chinese-language provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q30239. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2001 and 2015.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Chinese Wikipedia”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Chinese Wikipedia primary sources, Chinese Wikipedia archive and Chinese research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Chinese Wikipedia”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Chinese Wikipedia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.