General Question

Ltryptophan's avatar

If wikipedia was printed in volumes like a traditional encyclopedia how big would it be?

Asked by Ltryptophan (12091points) November 9th, 2021 from iPhone

Size matters! Ha

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

7 Answers

SavoirFaire's avatar

In June 2015, a hard copy of the English Wikipedia was printed in 7473 volumes of 700 pages each (5,231,100 pages total). As of 25 October 2021, if you removed all of the pictures and printed it to Encyclopædia Britannica standards (2 columns per page, 1000 pages per volume), the English Wikipedia would comprise 2,991.2 volumes (making it more than 93 times the size of the entire Encyclopædia Britannica, the last printed edition of which comprised 32 volumes).

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia#Hard_copy_size
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes

KRD's avatar

I thank it would be as big as two recipe book on top of each other.

jca2's avatar

Hopefully it would be with thin paper the way dictionaries and bibles used to be printed.

Forever_Free's avatar

Great visual stat. Too bad that half of the information is questionable at best.

Ltryptophan's avatar

Let’s say ¼ of it is right. How are all the other encyclopedias just 30 or so volumes. You’d think they might be 60 volumes at least.

SavoirFaire's avatar

@Forever_Free Are you saying that the information I provided is questionable at best (on topic), or that the information contained within Wikipedia is questionable at best (off topic)? If the former, everything I said is backed up by the links I provided. If the latter, then see this article and this letter for some interesting observations on the matter.

In any case, encyclopedias are by nature nothing more than starting points for knowledge. No single article, whether it be found on Wikipedia or in the Encyclopædia Britannica, can give you understanding of a topic. It can only start you down the path of understanding.

Forever_Free's avatar

@SavoirFaire Thank you for the links. I will review and revert.

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