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<div style="font-size:21px; font-family: serif; font-weight:bold; text-align:center; padding-top:7px; padding-bottom:7px;">Explore Wikipedia's Contents</div>

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There are two ways to look things up in Wikipedia: by searching or by browsing.

*If you know the name of an article for which you are looking, simply type it into Wikipedia's [[Help:Searching|search]] box.

*If you would like to look around the encyclopedia to see what is on it, use Wikipedia's '''Contents''' pages. Lists and [[Index (publishing)|indices]] are examples of contents for a published work, and Wikipedia has [[#Wikipedia's indices|many of each]], including a [[Portal:Contents/Quick index|complete alphabetical index]] and [[#Categorical indices|indices by category]]. <br /> Links to all of Wikipedia's main contents pages are presented below, and they in turn link to the more specific pages.

== Curated article collections ==

=== Overview articles ===

Overview articles summarize in prose a broad topic like [[biology]], and also have illustrations and links to subtopics like [[cell biology]], biographies like [[Carl Linnaeus]], and other related articles like [[Human Genome Project]].

* [[Portal:Contents/Overviews]] lists overview articles from covered areas of knowledge in a single page.

=== Outline pages ===

Outline pages have trees of article links in an [[Outline (list)|outline format]]. They show how important subtopics relate to each other, and can be useful as a more condensed, non-prose alternative to overview articles.

* [[Portal:Contents/Outlines]] is a comprehensive list of "Outline of __" pages, organized by subject

* [[Outline of academic disciplines]] covers subjects studied in college or university, and links directly to prose overview articles

=== Third-party classification systems ===

Various third-party classification systems have been mapped to Wikipedia articles, which can be accessed from these pages:

* [[List of Dewey Decimal classes]]

* [[Library of Congress Classification]]

* [[Wikipedia:Outline of Roget's Thesaurus]]

=== Vital articles ===

{{main|Wikipedia:Vital articles}}

Vital articles are lists of subjects for which Wikipedia should have corresponding high-quality articles. They serve as [[Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:Vital articles|centralized watchlists]] to track the status of Wikipedia's most important articles.

* [[Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/1|Vital articles level 1]] – 10 most important articles

* [[Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/2|Vital articles level 2]] – 100 most important articles

* [[Wikipedia:Vital articles|Vital articles level 3]] – 1,000 most important articles

* [[Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded|Vital articles level 4]] – 10,000 most important articles

==Reference collections==

Wikipedia has several types of pages which provide content in a non-prose form, for reference purposes.

=== List pages ===

List pages enumerate items of a particular type, such as the [[List of sovereign states]] or [[List of South Africans]]. Wikipedia has "lists of lists" when there are too many items to fit on a single page, when the items can sorted in different ways, or as a way of navigating lists on a topic (for example [[Lists of countries and territories]] or [[Lists of people]]). There are several ways to find lists:

* [[Portal:Contents/Lists]] – A limited single-page collection of lists and lists of lists

* [[List of lists of lists]] – A broad single-page collection of lists of lists

* [[:Category:Lists]] – Browse lists comprehensively via the multi-page Wikipedia category system

=== Timelines ===

[[Timelines]] list events chronologically, sometimes including links to articles with more detail. There are several ways to find timelines:

* [[List of timelines]] has a long single-page collection

* [[:Category:Timelines]] has a comprehensive multi-page collection via the Wikipedia category system

Of particular interest may be:

* [[List of centuries]]

* [[List of decades]]

* [[List of historical anniversaries]]—e.g. events on January 1 of any year

* [[{{CURRENTYEAR}}]]—major events this year

* [[Portal:Current events]]—featured current events and related project activities

* [[Deaths in {{CURRENTYEAR}}]]—lists notable people who died this year

* [[:Category:Graphical timelines]]—graphical timelines in the category and subcategories, arranged alphabetically

=== Glossaries ===

[[Glossaries]] are lists of terms with definitions. Wikipedia includes hundreds of alphabetical glossaries; they can be found two ways:

* [[Portal:Contents/Glossaries]] – A single-page list of glossaries

* [[:Category:Wikipedia glossaries]] – Browse glossaries comprehensively via the Wikipedia category system

=== Bibliographies ===

[[Bibliographies]] list sources on a given topic, for verification or further reading outside Wikipedia:

* [[:Wikipedia:List of bibliographies]] is a list of bibliographies

* [[:Category:Wikipedia bibliographies]] has a complete multi-page listing of bibliographies on Wikipedia

=== Category:Discographies ===

[[Discographies]] catalog the sound recordings of individual artists or groups.

* [[:Category:Discographies]] has a complete multi-page listing

==Special format collections==

=== Portals ===

[[Wikipedia:Portal|Portals]] include featured articles, images, news, categories, excerpts of key articles, links to related portals, and to-do lists for editors. There are two ways to find portals:

* [[Portal:Contents/Portals]] – A single-page list of portals

* [[:Category:Portals]] – Browse portals comprehensively via the Wikipedia category system

=== Wikipedia books ===

[[Wikipedia:Books|Wikipedia books]] are collections of Wikipedia articles that can be viewed, downloaded, or printed into a book. They provide a roadmap for a course of study in a particular subject.

* [[:Category:Wikipedia books (community books)]]—an alphabetical list of the books

* [[:Category:Wikipedia books]]—a list of the books, categorized by topic

=== Spoken articles ===

Growing collections of Wikipedia articles are starting to become available as spoken word recordings as well.

* [[:Category:Spoken articles]]—an organized list of all spoken articles

* [[Wikipedia:Spoken articles]]—some general information about the spoken article technology

== Collections of articles ==

=== Category system ===

Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Categorization|collection of category pages]] is a classified index system. It is automatically generated from category tags at the bottoms of articles and most other pages. Nearly all of the articles available so far on the website can be found through these subject indexes.

If you are simply looking to browse articles by topic, there are three top-level pages to choose from:

* [[:Category:Main topic classifications]]—probably what you are looking for: Arts, History, Technology, etc.

* [[Portal:Contents/Categories]]—a hand-crafted list of first- and second-level topic categories

For biographies, see [[:Category:People]].

[[:Category:Contents]] is technically at the top of the category hierarchy, but contains many categories useful to editors but not readers. [[Special:Categories]] lists every category alphabetically.

===Alphabetical lists of articles===

Wikipedia's alphabetical article indexes

* [[Special:Allpages]] lists all of the current pages in Wikipedia.

* [[Portal:Contents/A–Z index]] provides an easy way to skip to a particular part of the alphabet in the list of all articles.

* Lists of alphabetical indexes

** [[:Category:Wikipedia indexes]]—alphabetical list of topic indexes

** [[Portal:Contents/Indices]]—indexes sorted by topic area

== Collections of articles by quality or popularity ==

=== Featured content===

[[Portal:Featured content|Featured content]] is the best Wikipedia has to offer, via vigorous [[Wikipedia:Peer review|peer review]]. Presented by type:

* [[Wikipedia:Featured articles|Featured articles]]{{·}}[[Wikipedia:Featured lists|Featured lists]]{{·}} [[Wikipedia:Featured pictures|Featured pictures]]{{·}} [[Portal:Featured portals|Featured portals]]{{·}} [[Wikipedia:Featured topics|Featured topics]]

===Most popular articles===

* [[Wikipedia:Top 5000 pages]] (of the last week)

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