Wikipedia's contents

There are two ways to look things up in Wikipedia: by searching or by browsing.

If you know the name of an article you are looking for, simply type it into Wikipedia's search box and press Go, or you can search for information on a topic by typing it in the box and selecting Search.

If you would like to look around the encyclopedia to see what's on it, use Wikipedia's Contents pages. Lists and indices are examples of contents for a published work, and Wikipedia has many of each.  Links to all of Wikipedia's main contents pages are presented below, and they in turn link to the more specific pages.

Wikipedia's reference lists

Featured content

Featured content represents the best Wikipedia has to offer, and undergoes vigorous peer review. It can be found on the following directories:

  • Featured articles — What we believe to be the best articles in Wikipedia.
  • Featured pictures — Images we find beautiful, shocking, impressive, and informative.
  • Featured lists — What we believe to be the best lists in Wikipedia.
  • Featured portals — Portals we regard as being particularly useful, attractive, and well-maintained.
  • Featured topics — Topics we believe have coverage which is both comprehensive and well written.
  • Featured sounds — Sounds we find beautiful, impressive, and informative.

Portals

Portals are pages that feature selected articles, images, and often news items about the Portal's theme subject. They also include topic lists, category lists, and to-do lists which are used mostly by Wikipedia's editors. Portals can be found at:

Wikipedia's indices

Categorical indices

Wikipedia's main categorical index system is automatically generated from information (category tags) at the bottom of each article. The category system has 3 top-end pages, which are:

Wikipedia's other broad categorical indices are: