Wikipedia:Most read articles in 2009

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This essay, "Most-read articles in 2009" (or Most-viewed articles in 2009), is an averaged ranking, based on various Wikipedia article traffic statistics (revised 13 March 2010),^[1] gathered informally all during 2009. Listed, in separate groups, are: the Top 1000 articles (below), then many of the top 10,000 articles, followed by scattered counts for other, various, popular articles (ranked by monthly interest below 20,000 pageviews per month).

The top 1000 articles focused on major events, for the year, with "Michael Jackson" (#11), plus his family, albums, swine flu, and many celebrities or films ranking very high. The word "wiki" (#8) is still viewed by millions, along with YouTube (#13), Facebook, and "Wikipedia" all higher than "Sex" (#24). Many blog websites, celebrities, and sexual words ranked above 500. The rank of "The Beatles" (initially #9) fell to 57th on December 12, when daily page-views dropped from over 100,000 to 21,200 per day. Moving into the Top 1000, this year, were: Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Holocaust, God, Religion, Socialism, Democracy, Communism, Anne Boleyn, Hellen Keller, Plato, Meryl Streep, Demi Moore, Ryan Reynolds, Sandra Bullock, Bruce Willis, Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Taylor, Jesse James, Keanu Reeves, Usher, Justin Bieber & others.

The Top 1000 average over 5600 pageviews/day, but any low month, below 1500 per day, would drop an article's average by over 350 per day. Even in December, a low-interest article can skyrocket into the Top 1000 if a major news event causes reader-interest to exceed 1.9 million pageviews within a month (5600 pageviews/day totals 2,044,000 per year). Basically, the Top 1000 each get over 2 million views during the year, but might not be popular by year's end. For example, some topics related to "Twilight (2008 film)" had only moderate pageviews by November 2009.

However, many traditional topics were still high-ranking among the top 2,500 topics: Socrates #1325, Plato #830, and Aristotle #683, with Physics #1386.