# If all the articles on Wikipedia were printed off, how much space would it take up?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-articles-on-wikipedia-were-printed-off-how-much-space-would-it-take-up/556254>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 6, 2010, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-articles-on-wikipedia-were-printed-off-how-much-space-would-it-take-up/556254 "2010-10-06T14:38:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-articles-on-wikipedia-were-printed-off-how-much-space-would-it-take-up/556254/1 "2010-10-06T14:38:34Z")

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🆒

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**Author:** ![ctnguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@ctnguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ctnguy)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-articles-on-wikipedia-were-printed-off-how-much-space-would-it-take-up/556254/2 "2010-10-06T14:43:02Z")

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According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size\_of\_Wikipedia#Hard\_copy\_size](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia#Hard_copy_size), if you printed it in volumes 25cm tall and 5cm thick, it would take up 1448 volumes.

ETA: more details of the calculation at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size\_in\_volumes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes).

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**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-articles-on-wikipedia-were-printed-off-how-much-space-would-it-take-up/556254/3 "2010-10-06T14:44:21Z")

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One page.

If you measured the font in microns.

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**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-articles-on-wikipedia-were-printed-off-how-much-space-would-it-take-up/556254/4 "2010-10-06T15:18:54Z")

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Of course, the problem is, that before you’d finished printing the first volume, it would already be out of date.

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**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-articles-on-wikipedia-were-printed-off-how-much-space-would-it-take-up/556254/5 "2010-10-06T15:26:08Z")

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[This](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/the-backstory-of-wikipedias-take-on-the-iraq-war) is an blog post about a guy who actually printed and bound all of the edits to the Wikipedia article about the Iraq war made between December 2004 and November 2009. Admittedly, this is a large article, but the 12,000 changes amounted to 7,000 pages or twelve volumes.