TheRomanian Wikipedia (abr.ro.wiki orro.wp;[1]Romanian:Wikipedia în limba română) is theRomanian language edition ofWikipedia, the freeencyclopedia. Started on 12 July 2003, as of 28 November 2025 this edition has518,462 articles and is the 31st largest Wikipedia edition.[2] In December 2004, users on the Romanian Wikipedia started to talk about founding a local chapter of Wikimedia,Asociația Wikimedia România.
The first articles in the Romanian Wikipedia were written in July 2003, with the first version of the main page being drafted on 12 July. The user interface, initially in English, started being translated into Romanian by Bogdan Stăncescu (registered with the username Gutza) as soon as he was given sysop rights.[3] The same user subsequently contacted severalRomanian universities that were available on the internet, as well as theRomanian Academy, in order to attract new contributors. His efforts were soon remarked by the Romanian media, who invited him on several occasions to introduce the project to the public.[4][5] By the end of 2003, the Romanian Wikipedia had exceeded 3,000 articles, ranking 16th among all Wikipedias. The 10,000th article was written on 13 December 2004, and the 50,000th on 5 January 2007.
In June 2004, the Romanian Wikipedia encountered problems concerning its division and the creation of a separate Moldovan Wikipedia (seeMoldovan language). A Moldovan-language version of Wikipedia was brought into existence because it was created automatically together with a larger number of other Wikipedias, as the language had been assigned separateISO 639 codes (mo/mol—which were deprecated in November 2008 by the ISO authorities[6]). At its beginnings, it worked as a portal redirecting to the Romanian Wikipedia, but in March 2005, it eventually began allowing content (although only intended for Cyrillic Moldovan/Romanian as it was used before 1989 in theMoldavian SSR and remains in use only in the breakaway state ofTransnistria), starting big editing wars and endless discussion. Between December 2006 up to its deletion in November 2017, it was frozen and editing was no longer permitted. This question was raised from time to time, although users on Wikipedia voted on its closure and its deletion.[7][8]
The Romanian Wikipedia reached the 100,000 article milestone on 11 January 2008. As of September 2025, it has 516,000 articles and 1,967 active users, of whom 18 are administrators.
The logo of the Romanian Wikipedia was at first slightly different from the logos of other Wikipedias. The Cyrillic letterИ in the logo was replaced with the Romanian letterĂ.[9] It was later restored to the generic Wikipedia logo.
Articles can contain small spelling variations, mostly regarding the use of the lettersâ andî, both used for theclose central unrounded vowel/ɨ/ (cf.Romanian alphabet). According to the 1993 spelling rules promoted by theRomanian Academy,/ɨ/ is transcribed as eitherî, when used as the first or last letter of words, orâ, when it occurs in the middle of the word (with some exceptions). Still, between 1953 and 1993, the Romanian language only usedî - after 1964 an exception was made for derivations of the wordsRomânia ("Romania"),român ("Romanian") and related words. The Academy rules are mandatory in government organisations and in state schools inRomania.Moldova adopted the Latin alphabet for the Romanian language before the spelling reform in 1993, and it didn't switch to the new spelling up until 2001, using the letterî before exclusively (exceptions were made forRomânia and the other related words, spelled withâ). Other spelling differences includesunt/sînt orniciun/nici un. The Romanian Wikipedia community adopted a language policy stating that both pre-1993 and post-1993 spelling norms are permitted, and editing an article just to switch it from one norm to the other is not acceptable; switching is allowed if the article is significantly expanded or rewritten.[10]
Concerning the addressing policy, Romanian Wikipedia uses the polite forms of the personal pronouns and verbs. A policy on this was discussed in early 2006, and consensus was reached for the use ofdumneavoastră (polite "you") instead oftu (familiar "you") on its pages.[11]
