The country of India has produced many great and famous people, who have influenced the whole world. Today we are going to know about 30 most popular and influential Indians whose Wikipedia articles are available in the greatest number of languages. Famous Personalities from India by Wikipedia Articles
What is Wikipedia ?
You must have known about Wikipedia, and you must have used Wikipedia many times to find any information. Wikipedia is a multilingual and the world’s largest online encyclopedia.
Wikipedia is available in over 325 different languages, containing billions of articles. There are billions of articles available on Wikipedia. Among the 325+ Wikipedias, the English Wikipedia is the largest Wikipedia by number of articles.
2 Methods of measuring the popularity of a person on Wikipedia
There are many ways to measure the popularity of a person, but for this article we are going to use Wikipedia. There are mainly two ways of measuring a subject’s or a person’s popularity based on Wikipedia.
(1) Pageviews of a person’s article on a Wikipedia
(2) Number of Articles of a person on various versions of Wikipedia
And here we have followed only the second method, according to which we have listed the top 30 most famous personalities from India. Buddha tops the list while PM Modi is at the 7th position.
The Buddha is the ‘Most Popular Indian’ Ever
If we think of the most popular Indian personality of all time from an international perspective, undoubtedly the first name that comes to our mind is the Buddha. And after him the name of Gandhi comes.
But can any other Indian person have more Wikipedia articles than Buddha or Gandhi? How many articles should there be between Gandhi and Buddha in terms of Wikipedia popularity?
List of the Top 30 Great Personalities of India and the World
List of Wikipedia articles with high language representation of Indians
Let’s know the top 30 popular people of India, whose Wikipedia articles are available in 85+ languages. These figures are till August 2023, which will keep changing in future.
Great people from india wikipedia
1. Gautama Buddha : 201 Wikipedias
Gautama Buddha (623 or 563 BCE – 543 or 483 BCE), most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was an Indian philosopher, wandering ascetic and religious teacher. The Buddha is most famous for being the founder of Buddhism. He is also famous for his teachings on the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.
His biography is available in 201 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 190 in 2022: up from 185 in 2019). Gautama Buddha is the most popular Indian, the most popular person from Nepal, and the most popular Indian Philosopher, the most popular Buddhist figure.
2. Mahatma Gandhi : 192 Wikipedias
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India’s independence from British rule. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (Sanskrit: “great-souled”, “venerable”).
His biography is available in 192 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 188 in 2022; up from 184 in 2019). Mahatma Gandhi is the 2nd most popular Indian, the most popular Hindu from India and the most popular Indian politician.
3. Rabindranath Tagore : 156 Wikipedias
Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 8 August 1941) was an Indian -Bengali poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful” poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
His biography is available in 156 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 152 in 2022; up from 148 in 2019). Rabindranath Tagore is the 8th most popular Indian (up from 7th in 2019), the 2nd most popular Indian Hindu and the most popular Indian Writer.
4. Ashoka the Great : 150 Wikipedias
Ashoka (304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third Mauryan Emperor of Magadha in the Indian subcontinent during c. 268 to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, stretching from present-day Afghanistan in the west to present-day Bangladesh in the east, with its capital at Pataliputra. A patron of Buddhism, he is credited with playing an important role in the spread of Buddhism across ancient Asia. Ashoka’s edicts state that during his eighth regnal year (c. 260 BCE), he conquered Kalinga after a brutal war.
His biography is available in 150 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 126 in 2022; up from 124 in 2019). Ashoka is the 3rd most popular Indian, the 2nd most popular Indian Buddhist and the most popular Indian King.
5. Akbar the Great : 145 Wikipedias
Abu’l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (15 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expand and consolidate Mughal domains in the Indian subcontinent. Akbar gradually enlarged the Mughal Empire to include much of the Indian subcontinent through Mughal military, political, cultural, and economic dominance.
His biography is available in 145 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 139 in 2022; up from 137 in 2019). Akbar is the 11th most popular Indian (up from 9th in 2019), the 2nd most popular Indian Muslim and the 2nd most popular Indian King.
6. Jawaharlal Nehru : 142 Wikipedias
Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a principal leader of the Indian nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s. Upon India’s independence in 1947, he served as the country’s prime minister for 16 years.
His biography is available in 142 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 137 in 2022; up from 134 in 2019). Jawaharlal Nehru is the 12th most popular Indian (up from 14th in 2019), the 4th most popular Indian Politician and the 5th most popular Indian Hindu.
7. Narendra Modi : 141 Wikipedias
Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the 14th Prime Minister of India since May 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Varanasi. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organisation.
His biography is available in 141 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 134 in 2022; up from 111 in 2019). Narendra Modi is the 7th most popular Indian, the 2nd most popular Indian Politician and the 2nd most popular Indian Hindu.
8. Mother Teresa : 137 Wikipedias
Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997) was an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun and the founder of the Missionaries of Charity. Born in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire, at the age of 18 she moved to Ireland and later to India, where she lived most of her life. On 4 September 2016, she was canonised by the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
Her biography is available in 137 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 135 in 2022; up from 134 in 2019). Mother Teresa is the 5th most popular Indian, the 3rd most popular Indian Religious Figure and the most popular Indian Christian.
9. Dr B R Ambedkar : 132 Wikipedias
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (14 April 1891 – 6 December 1956) was an Indian polymath who was active as a philosopher, economist, jurist, politician, social reformer, journalist, lawyer, author, anthropologist, theologian, social scientist, political scientist, environmentarian, educationist, constitutionalist, polyglot, linguist, orator, and historian.
Dr Ambedkar was the undisputed leader of the country’s Dalits (formerly called ‘Untouchables’). Among the leading intellectuals of his time, Ambedkar was one of the Founding Fathers of the republic India, Independent India’s first law minister and the architect of the Constitution of India.
His biography is available in 132 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 122 in 2022; and up from 64 in 2019). B. R. Ambedkar is the 14th most popular Indian (up from 33rd in 2019), the 4th most popular Buddhist from India and the most popular person from Maharashtra.
10. Kalidasa : 130 Wikipedias
Kālidāsa (fl. 4th–5th century CE) was an Indian Classical Sanskrit author who is often considered ancient India’s greatest poet and playwright. His plays and poetry are primarily based on Hindu Puranas and philosophy.
His biography is available in 130 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 126 in 2022; up from 124 in 2019). Kālidāsa is the 18th most popular Indian (up from 15th in 2019).
11. Indira Gandhi : 126 Wikipedias
12. Satyajit Ray : 118 Wikipedias
13. 14th Dalai Lama : 116 Wikipedias
14: Chanakya : 113 Wikipedias
15. Amitabh Bachchan : 109 Wikipedias
16. Shah Rukh Khan : 108 Wikipedias
16. Aishwarya Rai : 108 Wikipedias
18. Brahmagupta : 104 Wikipedias
19. CV Raman : 101 Wikipedias
20. Salman Rushdie : 97 Wikipedias
21. Priyanka Chopra : 95 Wikipedias
22. Nagarjuna : 94 Wikipedias
22. Srinivasa Ramanujan : 94 Wikipedias
22. Rajiv Gandhi : 94 Wikipedias
25: Guru Nanak : 92 Wikipedias
26. Swami Vivekananda : 89 Wikipedias
26. Ravi Shankar : 89 Wikipedias
26. Aamir Khan : 89 Wikipedias
26. Salman Khan : 89 Wikipedias
30. Aryabhatta : 87 Wikipedias
31. Pratibha Patil : 86 Wikipedias
31. Viswanathan Anand : 86 Wikipedias
Source
- Like Wikipedia, wikidata, a sister of the Wikimedia Foundation, keeps track of the total number of language Wikipedia articles written on a subject/person. E.g. – B. R. Ambedkar wikidata (132 articles)
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia articles written in the greatest number of languages
Friends, in today’s post we have learned about some ‘world famous Indians’, whose Wikipedia articles are written in most languages (most famous Indians on Wikipedia).
If you want to know how many wikipedia languages an article of any other Indian or foreign person is available in, please ask in the comment box below.
Read also :
- Top 30 Most famous Personalities of India
- Top 20 Most Viewed Personalities on Hindi Wikipedia (by year – 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022)
- Articles of Famous people
- Buddhism related articles
- Dr BR Ambedkar related articles
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