Editing History of Wikipedia (section)

=== Divisions and internationalization ===
Early in Wikipedia's development, it began to expand internationally, with the creation of new [[namespace]]s, each with a distinct set of [[username]]s. The first [[subdomain]] created for a non-English Wikipedia was {{Mono|[[German Wikipedia|deutsche.wikipedia.com]]}} (created on Friday 16 March 2001, 01:38 UTC),<ref>{{Cite web |date=15 March 2001 |title=Alternative language Wikipedias |url=http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-March/000049.html |access-date=13 April 2010 |website=Lists |publisher=Wikimedia |archive-date=20 June 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620120726/http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-March/000049.html |url-status=live }}</ref> followed after a few hours by {{Mono|[[Catalan Wikipedia|catalan.wikipedia.com]]}} (at 13:07 UTC).<ref>{{Cite web |title=History of the Catalan Homepage |url=http://catalan.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=history&id=HomePage |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010413083954/http://catalan.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=history&id=HomePage |archive-date=13 April 2001 |access-date=13 April 2010 |publisher=Wikipedia}}</ref> The [[Japanese Wikipedia]], started as {{Mono|nihongo.wikipedia.com}}, was created around that period,<ref>{{Cite web |date=20 April 2001 |title=Nihongo No Wikipedia: HomePage |url=http://nihongo.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=browse&id=HomePage&revision=3 |access-date=16 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010420120143/http://nihongo.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=browse&id=HomePage&revision=3 |archive-date=20 April 2001 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=31 March 2001 |title=Wikipedia: HomePage |url=http://www.wikipedia.com/ |access-date=16 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010331173908/http://www.wikipedia.com/ |archive-date=31 March 2001 }}</ref> and initially used only [[Romanization of Japanese|Romanized Japanese]]. For about two months Catalan was the one with the most articles in a non-English language,<ref>[[Wikipedia:Multilingual monthly statistics (2001)|Multilingual monthly statistics]]</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C3%80bac&oldid=1 |title= First edition in the Catalan Wikipedia |language= ca |publisher= Wikipedia |access-date= 13 April 2010 |archive-date= 12 November 2020 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20201112014959/https://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C3%80bac |url-status= live }}</ref> although statistics of that early period are imprecise.<ref>This [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Multilingual_monthly_statistics_(2001)&oldid=192353617 table] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210222221921/https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AMultilingual_monthly_statistics_%282001%29&oldid=192353617 |date=22 February 2021 }}, for instance, misses Japanese and German articles such as [https://web.archive.org/web/20010421123743/http://nihongo.wikipedia.com/wiki/Nihongo_no_funimekusu this one] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20010411030440/http://deutsche.wikipedia.com/wiki/Nupedia_Deutsch-L_Sektion this one], both dated 6 April 2001.</ref>

The [[French Wikipedia]] was created on or around 11 May 2001,<ref>The [http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikip%C3%A9dia:Historique_de_Wikip%C3%A9dia_en_fran%C3%A7ais&oldid=34816819 Documentation on the French Wikipedia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210608194149/https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikip%C3%A9dia:Historique_de_Wikip%C3%A9dia_en_fran%C3%A7ais&oldid=34816819 |date=8 June 2021 }} mentions the date of 23 March 2001, but this date is not supported by Wikipedia snapshots on the [[Internet Archive]], nor by Jason Richey's letter, which was dated 11 May 2001 (see below).</ref> in a wave of new language versions that also included [[Chinese Wikipedia|Chinese]], [[Dutch Wikipedia|Dutch]], [[Esperanto Wikipedia|Esperanto]], [[Hebrew Wikipedia|Hebrew]], [[Italian Wikipedia|Italian]], <!--[[Japanese Wikipedia|Japanese]], commenting out: although Japanese Wikipedia was announced together with the others on that email, it already existed under the domain nihongo.wikipedia.com-->[[Portuguese Wikipedia|Portuguese]], [[Russian Wikipedia|Russian]], [[Spanish Wikipedia|Spanish]], and [[Swedish Wikipedia|Swedish]].<ref>[http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-May/000116.html  Letter of Jason Richey to wikipedia-l mailing list] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620081721/http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-May/000116.html |date=20 June 2014 }} 11 May 2001</ref> These languages were soon joined by [[Arabic Wikipedia|Arabic]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Homepage from the Internet Archive |url=http://ar.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?HomePage |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011118054300/http://ar.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?HomePage |archive-date=18 November 2001 |access-date=13 April 2010 |publisher=Wikipedia}}</ref> and [[Hungarian Wikipedia|Hungarian]].<ref>[http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Announcements_2001#May_2001 Wikipedia:Announcements] May 2001</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=International_Wikipedia&action=history |title = International Wikipedia |publisher=Wikipedia |access-date=13 April 2010}}</ref> In September 2001, an announcement pledged commitment to the multilingual provision of Wikipedia,<ref>[[Wikipedia: Announcements 2001#September 2001|Wikipedia:Announcements 2001]]</ref> notifying users of an upcoming roll-out of Wikipedias for all major languages, the establishment of core standards, and a push for the translation of core pages for the new wikis. At the end of that year, when international statistics first began to be logged, [[Afrikaans Wikipedia|Afrikaans]], [[Norwegian Wikipedia|Norwegian]], and [[Serbian Wikipedia|Serbian]] versions were announced.<ref>{{Cite web |title=International Wikipedias statistics |url=http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:International_wikipedias_statistics |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030305012547/http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:International_wikipedias_statistics |archive-date=5 March 2003 |access-date=13 April 2010 |publisher=Wikipedia}}</ref>

In January 2002, 90% of all Wikipedia articles were in English. By January 2004, fewer than 50% were English, and this internationalization has continued to increase as the encyclopedia grows. {{as of|2014}}, about 85% of all Wikipedia articles were in non-English Wikipedia versions.<ref name="Grand20" /> {{as of|2023}}, the English and Simple English Wikipedias have 7 million articles between them, but roughly 90% of articles were in non-English Wikipedias.<ref>{{Cite web |title=List of Wikipedias – Meta |url=https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=meta.wikimedia.org |language=en}}</ref>