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Arabic Wikipedia

Screenshot
URL	http://ar.wikipedia.org/
Commercial?	No
Type of site	Internet encyclopedia project
Registration	Optional
Available language(s)	Arabic
Owner	Wikimedia Foundation

The Arabic Wikipedia (Arabic: ويكيبيديا العربية‎ Wīkībīdyā al-ʿArabiyya or ويكيبيديا، الموسوعة الحرة Wīkībīdyā, al-Mawsūʿa al-Ḥurra) is the Arabic language version of Wikipedia. It started on July 9, 2003. As of December 2009, it has over 117,700 articles, 616,000 pages, 249,000 registered users and 6,700 files. The Arabic Wikipedia is currently the 25th largest edition of Wikipedia by article count, and is the first Semitic language to exceed 100,000 articles.^[1]

The design of the Arabic Wikipedia differs somewhat from other Wikipedias. Most notably, since Arabic is written right-to-left, the location of links is a mirror image of those Wikipedias in languages written left-to-right. Also, the background uses a traditional Arabic geometric tessellation pattern in place of the standard look.

[edit] Blocking

The Arabic Wikipedia has been blocked in Syria with no official reasons given by the Syrian government.^[2][3] The block began on April 30, 2008 while all other language versions of Wikipedia remain unblocked and freely accessible. This block continued until February 13, 2009, where the block on the Arabic Wikipedia was suddenly lifted by the Syrian government, again without any official notification on why it was blocked in the first place. Wikimedia continues to be blocked, which causes all images on Wikipedia (in all languages) to be unavailable.

[edit] Milestones

• Arabic Wikipedia was launched in late August/early September 2001, yet due to Mediawiki software migration, the oldest surviving edit dates back to July 9, 2003.
• Article number 10,000 was نكاف (Mumps) created on December 25, 2005.
• Article number 50,000 was جامعة تكساس مدرسة الطب في هيوستن (University of Texas Medical Branch) created on December 31, 2007.
• Article number 75,000 was ترتيب الصحارى من حيث المساحة (List of deserts by area) created on August 30, 2008.
• Article number 100,000 was المعهد العالي للفنون والحرف بقابس (University of Gabès Higher Institute of Arts and Crafts) created on May 25, 2009.

[edit] See also

• Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia

[edit] References

Arabic Wikipedia edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia