 Logo of the Tamil Wikipedia | |
Screenshot  The homepage of the Tamil Wikipedia (December 2013) | |
Type of site | Internet encyclopedia |
|---|---|
| Available in | Tamil |
| Headquarters | Miami,Florida |
| Owner | Wikimedia Foundation |
| URL | ta |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Open read access. No registration needed for general editing, but necessary for certain tasks including
|
| Users | 241,936 |
| Launched | September 2003; 21 years ago (2003-09) |
Content license | Creative Commons Attribution/ Share-Alike 4.0 (most text also dual-licensed underGFDL) Media licensing varies |
TheTamil Wikipedia (Tamil:தமிழ் விக்கிப்பீடியா) is theTamil language edition ofWikipedia established in September 2003, run by theWikimedia Foundation.[1] The Tamil Wikipedia is the largest Wikipedia among Indian languages and the 60th largest Wikipedia by article count (as of 15 March 2025).[1] It is also the first and only Wikipedia ofDravidian origin to possess more than 150,000+ articles (as of 2022). The project is one of the leading Wikipedia among other South Asian language Wikipedia's in various quality matrices.[2] It has 172,491 articles and 241,936 registered users as of March 2025[update].[3] It crossed 100,000 articles in May 2017.[4]
Contrary to common academiccriticism of Wikipedia in the Western countries, the Tamil Wikipedia is widely regarded as an important source of information in theTamil language on the Internet.[5] The encyclopedia undergoes far less vandalism compared to larger Wikipedia projects, largely because the project has slower growth, mainly due to the lack of computers or Internet service in rural areas ofTamil Nadu andSri Lanka. Most of the project's development comes from the overseasTamil diaspora.[5][6]
In April 2010, the Tamil Internet Conference held a contest for college students across the state of Tamil Nadu, India for increasing content on the Tamil Wikipedia.[7] The contest was made with regards to theWorld Classical Tamil Conference 2010, a meeting ofTamil scholars across the world who discuss modern development of the language. With over 2000 contestants enrolled, the contest concluded with the creation of 1,200 new academically reviewed articles on the Tamil Wikipedia in various subjects.[8]
In September 2013, the Tamil Wikipedia celebrated its 10th anniversary.[9]
For Tamil Wikipedia, 2017 was a very productive year. More than 27,000 articles were written; the majority of them were written in the period between May and July.[10] In June and July, a teacher education program took place, in 3 districts of Tamil Nadu, giving thousands of articles in Tamil Wikipedia.
| Number of user accounts | Number of articles | Number of files | Number of administrators |
|---|---|---|---|
| 241936 | 172491 | 9104 | 32 |
| 150,000+ | | |
|---|---|---|
| 50,000+ |
| |
| 20,000+ | ||
| 1,000+ | ||
