Persian Wikipedia (Persian: ویکی‌پدیای فارسی, romanized: Wīkipediāī Fārsī) is the Persian language version of Wikipedia. The Persian version of Wikipedia was started in December 2003. As of April 2024, it has 999,054 articles, 1,303,267 registered users, and 90,141 files, and it is the 19th largest edition of Wikipedia by article count, and ranks 22nd in terms of depth among Wikipedias. It passed 1,000 articles on December 16, 2004, and 200,000 on July 10, 2012. Roozbeh Pournader is the project's first administrator, developer, and bureaucrat.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Persian. (August 2011) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Persian article. 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. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 305 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. 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 Persian Wikipedia article at [[:fa:ویکی‌پدیای فارسی]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|fa|ویکی‌پدیای فارسی}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

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Persian Wikipedia

Screenshot Main Page of the Persian Wikipedia in June 2011
Type of site	Internet encyclopedia
Available in	Persian
Owner	Wikimedia Foundation (non-profit)
URL	fa.wikipedia.org
Commercial	No
Registration	Optional (required only for certain tasks such as editing protected pages, creating pages or uploading files)
Users	1,133,601 (total registered, as of 11 July 2022)[1]
Launched	December 19, 2003; 20 years ago (2003-12-19)
Content license	Creative Commons Attribution/ Share-Alike 3.0 (most text also dual-licensed under GFDL) Media licensing varies

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It is the most popular language version of Wikipedia in Iran and Afghanistan.

In January 2013, nearly 50,000 new articles were added within a month. A few days later, on 19 February 2013, the Persian Wikipedia reached 300,000 articles, ranking it 18th among all Wikipedias based on the number of articles.^[2]

It currently has 999,054 articles, making it the 19th largest Wikipedia by article count.

History of the number of articles:

• 19 December 2003: started
• 18 February 2006: reached 10,000 articles
• 30 October 2008: reached 50,000 articles
• 25 August 2010: reached 100,000 articles
• 9 July 2012: reached 200,000 articles
• 19 February 2013: reached 300,000 articles
• 18 July 2014: reached 400,000 articles
• 27 July 2016: reached 500,000 articles
• 3 May 2018: reached 600,000 articles^[3]
• 8 November 2019: reached 700,000 articles
• 26 May 2021: reached 800,000 articles
• 13 April 2022: reached 900,000 articles

With article depth of 151, the Persian Wikipedia is currently ranked 23rd among all Wikipedias based on article depth.^[4]

Freedom of expression in the Persian-speaking countries of Iran, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan is low.^{[5][6][7][8][9]}

According to reports by human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr, RFERL, Iranwire, Iran International, Justice for Iran, Open Democracy, Radio Zamaneh and other news outlets, the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance and the Iranian Cyber Army may be interfering the Persian Wikipedia, although the Wikimedia Foundation denies that there is abuse taking place.^{[12][13][14][15][16][17][18]} In 2019, German news outlet Deutsche Welle reported that WMF had launched an investigation.^[19]

In a November 2013 report published by the Center for Global Communication Studies of the University of Pennsylvania, researchers Collin Anderson and Nima Nazeri scanned 800,000 Persian language Wikipedia articles and found that the Iranian government blocks 963 of these pages. According to the authors, "Censors repeatedly targeted Wikipedia pages about government rivals, minority religious beliefs, and criticisms of the state, officials, and the police. Just under half of the blocked Wiki-pages are biographies, including pages about individuals the authorities have allegedly detained or killed."^[20] Anderson said that Persian Wikipedia, as a microcosm of the Iranian internet, is a "useful place to uncover the types of online content forbidden and an excellent template to identify keyword blocking themes and filtering rules that apply across the greater internet."^[21]

On 2 March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran, the Persian Wikipedia appeared to be disrupted in Iran after the death of Mohammad Mirmohammadi, who was a close confidant to the country's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.^[22]

• 100,000 entries celebration logo (August 2010)
• Persian Wikipedia's Nowruz logo (21 March 2015)
• Persian Wikipedia's Nowruz logo (21 March 2016)
• Persian Wikipedia's 500,000 article logo (27 July 2016)
• Persian Wikipedia's Nowruz logo (21 March 2017)
• 600,000 entries celebration logo (March 2018)
• Persian Wikipedia's Nowruz logo (21 March 2019)
• 800,000 entries celebration logo (May 2021)
• 900,000 entries celebration logo (April 2022)

• List of Wikipedias