# How big is Wikipedia? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 22, 2008, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-wikipedia/438742 "2008-02-22T17:40:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2008, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-wikipedia/438742/1 "2008-02-22T17:40:45Z")
Let’s say I wanted an offline copy of Wikipedia to show my father, who does not have internet access. I push a magic button, take a snapshot of the entire Wikipedia database, and start downloading it. Ignoring issues of data transfer, and assuming I have a database engine and front-end web server to access the data, how much storage do I need to keep it? One BD-ROM? A terabyte hard drive? Something larger? ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2008, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-wikipedia/438742/2 "2008-02-22T17:46:17Z")
[This page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia) doesn’t directly answer your question, but proviudes some similar stats. For instance, printing out a harcopy of Wikipedia would currently need 733 volumes. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2008, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-wikipedia/438742/3 "2008-02-22T17:49:22Z")
> **[Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia)** > > The size of the English Wikipedia can be measured in terms of the number of articles, number of words, number of pages, and the size of the database, among other ways. As of 21 October 2023, there are 6,731,850 articles in the English Wikipedia containing over 4.3 billion words (giving an average of about 658 words per article). Including articles, the total number of pages is 59,215,047. Being pages themselves, articles make up 11.37 percent of all pages on Wikipedia. As of 2 July 2023, the s Wi... That kind of storage comparison I’m not sure, but that article says Wikipedia would fill between 708 and 731 volumes of the encyclopaedia Brittanica. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2008, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-wikipedia/438742/4 "2008-02-22T18:18:59Z")
The English Wikipedia seems to take up ~[7.5GB](http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/April_2007/en/) as of April 2007. [These folks](http://notebook.webaroo.com/webpack/wikipedia/wikipedia) offer a ready package if you want it locally. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2008, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-wikipedia/438742/5 "2008-02-22T18:24:39Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] Let’s say I wanted an offline copy of Wikipedia to show my father, who does not have internet access. I push a magic button, take a snapshot of the entire Wikipedia database, and start downloading it. [/QUOTE] You don’t need a magic button. You can download the whole database [here](http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/latest/). The table with all the articles in it, pages-articles, is only 3.2GB in compressed XML. You can fit it easily on a DVD with room to spare. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2008, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-wikipedia/438742/6 "2008-02-22T18:25:29Z")
[QUOTE=II Gyan II] The English Wikipedia seems to take up ~[7.5GB](http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/April_2007/en/) as of April 2007. [These folks](http://notebook.webaroo.com/webpack/wikipedia/wikipedia) offer a ready package if you want it locally. [/QUOTE] Hmm. That’s smaller than I expected, especially considering all the pictures. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2008, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-wikipedia/438742/7 "2008-02-22T18:50:56Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] Hmm. That’s smaller than I expected, especially considering all the pictures. [/QUOTE] The question has varying answers, though. English only? With pictures or without? With discussion pages? With page histories? With links to cites? With links to related pages? Etc. There’s a lot of stuff you can trim back to get it to fit. If all else fails, you can start cutting off less-popular articles.