Portal:Contents

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Explore Wikipedia's contents

Below are systems for browsing subject names. These can be used to quickly become familiar with topic areas, their scope, their structure, and their vocabulary. They can also help find a subject even when its name is unknown to the reader.

Overviews

  • Overview – basic outline of knowledge divided into 12 major subject branches
  • Outlines – each breaks its subject down into branches and levels. Together they form a massive outline of knowledge.
  • List of academic disciplines – outline of knowledge divided by field of study

Lists

Wikipedia has thousands more topic lists; some even are lists of other lists.

Two of the broadest list collections are:

Alphabetical indexes

Alphabetical indexes are the exceptions to the topical section rule.

Outlines

Outlines are subject overviews in structured lists that show how topics are related to each other.

Timelines

Timelines list articles chronologically. The top-level timelines and timeline sets are:

Featured content

Featured content is the best Wikipedia has to offer, via vigorous peer review. Presented by type:

Spoken articles

Growing collections of Wikipedia articles are available as spoken word recordings.

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.

Portals

A portal introduces the reader to a subject by presenting images, categories and excerpts of key articles. Portals also guide editing by providing to-do lists.

Categorical indexes

Wikipedia's category system is generated from category tags at the bottom of articles and other pages. The top-level pages are:

  • Categories – an index of major categories, arranged by subject (because this page is crafted by hand, it is an exception to the category autogeneration rule)
  • Category:Articles – the category in which all article category systems are located
  • Category:Wikipedia categories – pages and categories which themselves specifically relate to categories
  • Category:Contents – the highest level or "root" category in Wikipedia – its subcategories contain various types of encyclopedic content, content that assists with the navigation of the encyclopedia, as well as pages related to the maintenance of the encyclopedia – its autogenerated entries are listed at the bottom of the page
  • Category:Fundamental categories – the category containing the most fundamental ontological categories, such that every article category system can reasonably be expected to be within it

Wikipedia's other broad categorical indexes are:

Glossaries

Glossaries are lists of terms with definitions.

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