Product Code Database
The Korean Wikipedia () is the Korean-language edition of Wikipedia. Founded on 11 October 2002, it is the -largest Wikipedia, with articles and active users. It is the second-largest Korean-language wiki, following Namuwiki. The Korean Wikipedia is unusual in that it officially uses “Wiki baekgwa”(위키백과) instead of “Wikipedia.”(위키피디아) Aside from the Chinese Wikipedia, which adopt a semantic translation due to the difficulty of phonetic transliteration, nearly all other language editions use “Wikipedia” as their official name, making the Korean case highly exceptional.
The Korean Wikipedia initially used an older version of MediaWiki. The software had problems representing Hangul, which limited usage. In August 2002, the software was upgraded and started to support non-English scripts such as Hangul. From October 2002 to July 2003, the number of articles increased from 13 to 159, and in August 2003 it reached 348. In September 2003, the Hangul problem was solved. From September 2003, the number of contributions and visits increased. The Korean Wikipedia's prospects became even more optimistic following the momentum created by substantial coverage in the Korean media. It reached 10,000 articles on 4 June 2005.
On 16 April 2011, discussions were held to promote the formation of a group to support Wikimedia projects in South Korea. Subsequently, on 10 March 2012, the Wikimedia Korea Chapter Preparation Committee was established. A founding general meeting was held on 19 October 2014, and finally, on 4 November 2015, the non-profit corporation Korea Wikimedia Association was officially established and has been active since then. In 2019, it was approved by the Wikimedia Foundation in the United States as a recognized chapter in South Korea.
| 1 | 12 October 2002 |
| 10,000 | 5 June 2005 |
| 20,000 | 12 February 2006 |
| 30,000 | 14 December 2006 |
| 40,000 | 2 August 2007 |
| 50,000 | 4 January 2008 |
| 60,000 | 24 April 2008 |
| 70,000 | 7 August 2008 |
| 80,000 | 20 November 2008 |
| 90,000 | 25 February 2009 |
| 100,000 | 4 June 2009 |
| 150,000 | 15 December 2010 |
| 200,000 | 19 May 2012 |
| 250,000 | 3 October 2013 |
| 300,000 | 5 January 2015 |
| 350,000 | 3 June 2016 |
| 400,000 | 21 October 2017 |
| 500,000 | 15 June 2020 |
| 600,000 | 16 August 2022 |
| 700,000 | 18 March 2025 |
Jimmy Wales stated that, in other countries, models like Wikipedia were first introduced during the early stages of the internet, leading to very enthusiastic responses. In contrast, in South Korea, other collective collaboration services such as Naver's Jisik-in (지식인), a Quora style ask-and-answer website, were already available, leading to much more lackluster responses.
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