Holly, Tea, and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Top Wikipedia in 2012

We were trawling the internet and came across this nugget thanks to the Wall Street Journal’s tech blog, All Things D.

Swedish software engineer Johan Gunnarsson has published a list of the most popular Wikipedia pages in 2012 language by language.

Curiously topping the most viewed page in English is the article for Facebook – with more than 32.6 million hits.

Now, why click on Wikipedia instead of just going to Facebook itself?

Well, there might be a number of reasons – maybe because the company went public this year, or, all the buzz surrounding the new timeline feature. And there’s always the debate over privacy.

Or, maybe it’s because the Wikipedia brand is so familiar, that when people searched for Facebook, they clicked on the Wikipedia entry instead.

There were some more unusual “most viewed” pages in Gunnarsson’s research.

Many netizens want to know what Wiki is saying about them. The number one hit in Russian, Greek and Swedish was: Russia, Greece and Sweden.

The most-visited page in German is about: cul de sacs.

And the entry for the TV show “Grey’s Anatomy” topped Wikipedia searches in Italian.

Other interesting highlights: Tea, as in the drink, was the most visited page in Danish.

And “Houx crenele,” also known as Japanese holly, was viewed the most in French.

And as for the Japanese themselves, they spent most of their time cruising Wikipedia for … adult movie actresses.

Most viewed articles on English Wikipedia 2012
Page name | View count
1. Facebook | 32,647,942
2. Wiki | 29,613,759
3. Deaths in 2012 | 25,418,587
4. One Direction | 22,351,637
5. The Avengers (2012 film) | 22,268,644
6. Fifty Shades of Grey | 21,779,423
7. 2012 phenomenon | 20,619,920
8. The Dark Knight Rises | 18,882,885
9. Google | 18,508,719
10. The Hunger Games | 18,431,626

Most viewed articles on German Wikipedia 2012
Page name | View count
1. Sackgasse | 10,206,548
2. Deutschland | 6,445,565
3. Nekrolog 2012 | 6,091,682
4. How I Met Your Mother | 5,312,356
5. The Big Bang Theory | 4,943,580
6. Fußball-Europameisterschaft 2012 | 4,753,849
7. G | 3,709,187
8. Two and a Half Men | 2,990,156
9. Game of Thrones | 2,935,307
10. Facebook | 2,889,451

Here are the top Wikipedia pages in Italian, French, Danish, and Japanese.