The Korean Wikipedia (Korean: 한국어 위키백과, romanized: Han-gugeo Wiki Baekgwa) is the Korean language edition of Wikipedia. It was founded on 11 October 2002 and reached ten thousand articles on 4 June 2005.^[1] As of April 2024, it is the 23rd largest Wikipedia, with 666,225 articles and 2,037 active users.^[2]

This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2008)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Korean. (August 2012) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Korean Wikipedia article at [[:ko:한국어 위키백과]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|ko|한국어 위키백과}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Type of site, Available in ...

Korean Wikipedia

Screenshot Main Page of the Korean Wikipedia in December 2019
Type of site	Internet encyclopedia project
Available in	Korean
Headquarters	Seoul
Owner	Wikimedia Foundation
URL	ko.wikipedia.org
Commercial	No
Registration	Optional

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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.^[3] However, Internet Explorer continued to have an encoding problem, which kept contributions to the encyclopedia low.^[4] Nevertheless, from October 2002 to July 2003, the number of articles increased from 13 to 159, and in August 2003 it reached 348. Finally, in September 2003 the hangul problem was solved. From September 2003, with no accessing difficulty once the encoding error in IE was solved, 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.

The Korean Wikipedia won the Information Trust Award in the general Internet culture branch in 2005.^{[citation needed][importance?]}

The Korean Wikipedia is written almost entirely in hangul. Hanja is only used in order to clarify certain phrases, and is usually parenthesized. A group named Dajimo worked to introduce a mixed script system to the Korean Wikipedia. A request for a separate Wikipedia in mixed script, however, was rejected.^[5]

There are two major standards in the Korean language: the South Korea standard, and the North Korea standard. North Koreans are underrepresented on the Korean Wikipedia due to censorship of the internet in North Korea. Therefore, most users of the Korean Wikipedia are South Koreans and most articles are written in the South Korean style. The official name of the Wikipedia is 한국어 위키백과 Hangugeo Wiki-baekgwa. Hangugeo is the name for the Korean language in South Korea, and baekgwa is a clipped form of 백과사전 baekgwasajeon "encyclopedia".

Businesses heavily make use of the Korean Wikipedia in various ways since its license, the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License (CC BY-SA), allows modification and distribution for commercial purposes.

Empas integrated the Korean Wikipedia database in its search since 11 August 2005.^[6] The feature to search Korean Wikipedia using a mobile phone with a wireless Internet connection through Nate was available to the subscribers of SK Telecom from 6 July 2007.^[7] Since 21 August, Daum mirrored Korean Wikipedia and English Wikipedia on its portal,^[8] and Naver also started to present the search results from the Korean and English Wikipedia prior to others from 11 January 2008.^[9]

The South Korean right-wing youth group story K favors proactive involvement in contributing to Korean Wikipedia.^[10][11]

Human rights groups have sent copies of the Korean Wikipedia to North Korea on USB sticks by balloon.^[12]

• Korean Wikipedia's 30,000 article logo (14 December 2006)
• Korean Wikipedia's 40,000 article logo (2 August 2007)
• Korean Wikipedia's 50,000 article logo (4 January 2008)
• Korean Wikipedia's 60,000 article logo (24 April 2008)
• Korean Wikipedia's 70,000 article logo (7 August 2008)
• Korean Wikipedia's 80,000 article logo (20 November 2008)
• Korean Wikipedia's 100,000 article logo (4 June 2009)
• Korean Wikipedia's 150,000 article logo (15 December 2010)
• Korean Wikipedia's 200,000 article logo (19 May 2012)
• Korean Wikipedia's 250,000 article logo (3 October 2013)
• Korean Wikipedia's 300,000 article logo (5 January 2015)
• Korean Wikipedia's 400,000 article logo (22 October 2017)
• Korean Wikipedia's 500,000 article logo (15 June 2020)
• Korean Wikipedia's 600,000 article logo (16 August 2022)