# Uzbek Wikipedia

The Uzbek Wikipedia (Uzbek: Ўзбекча Википедия, Oʻzbekcha Vikipediya) is the Uzbek-language edition of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which was founded in December 2003. Articles in the Uzbek-language edition are primarily written in Latin script. In August 2012, a Latin-to-Cyrillic converter was added to allow users to view Uzbek Wikipedia's pages in both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts.
Although Uzbek is spoken by 35 million people in estimation and Uzbekistan has approximately 17 million internet users, there are scarce number of active editors in Uzbek Wikipedia and the majority of the articles are poorly attributed. Since early 2012, the number of active users and article structure have developed notably as well as the number of visits increased in Uzbek encyclopedia. From 2019 to May 2022, the number of active users more than doubled to over 500 active users.
In early 2013, this Wikipedia ranked first among different editions of Wikipedia in terms of annual page-view growth. The current number of articles in the Uzbek Wikipedia is 291,538.
In late 2011, the Uzbek Wikipedia was blocked in Uzbekistan. The reasons for the blockage were never disclosed. The block was not strictly enforced, as this Wikipedia version could be accessed on a HTTPS connection. In 2013, Google started indexing pages of the Uzbek Wikipedia with HTTPS by default. Currently, users in Uzbekistan can access the pages of the Uzbek Wikipedia without any problems. In 2022, the WikiStipendiya marathon began, in collaboration with the Uzbek government. This led to significant growth in this Wikipedia's article count, encyclopedic coverage, quality, and reach in Uzbek society.

## History

The Uzbek Wikipedia was launched on December 21, 2003, and the first edit was made on the main page of the encyclopedia on 21 December 2003. It remained largely inactive in 2004, but then around 2005 it started to grow.
Around the beginning of October 2011, the Uzbek Wikipedia was blocked in Uzbekistan. Despite the blockage, the encyclopedia continued growing exponentially in 2012. During that same year, a bot was used to create a large number of articles. In 2013, another bot added all of the articles of the National Encyclopedia of Uzbekistan to the Uzbek Wikipedia.
A mirror of the Uzbek Wikipedia was set up at wiki.zn.uz in 2008. It was created to reduce international traffic for Internet users in Uzbekistan. However, the mirror has been down since June 2012.

### Wikiconferences

In 2007, the first Wikiconference (Uzbek: Vikimajlis) of Uzbek Wikipedia editors was organized at the Tashkent University of Information Technologies. Participants included those who had never edited Wikipedia before.

### WikiSummer

In 2008, a WikiSummer (Uzbek: VikiYoz; "yoz" means both "summer" and "to write" in Uzbek) contest was organized with financial support from Uzinfocom, an agency of the State Committee of Communication, Informatization, and Telecommunication Technology of Uzbekistan. The main goal of the contest was to contribute to the expansion and development of the Uzbek Wikipedia. However, only a few people showed interest in it, resulting in the contest being unsuccessful.

### OzodWiki

In February 2014, RFE/RL's Uzbek Service, known locally as Ozodlik radiosi, launched the OzodWiki project to contribute to the development of the Uzbek Wikipedia. A wide range of articles, including interviews with active editors, reviews of existing articles, and lessons on editing Wikipedia were published as part of the project. In addition, selected words and phrases used in Ozodlik Radiosi's reports were hyperlinked to corresponding entries in the Uzbek Wikipedia to popularize the encyclopedia. The OzodWiki project was "mutually beneficial, enabling Ozodlik users to click through to expanded information resources while popularizing Wikipedia by driving new topics and audience their way." A total of 33 unique articles were published as part of the project. The final OzodWiki article was published in January 2016.
In a short time, the OzodWiki project had a positive impact on the Uzbek Wikipedia. While it is unlikely that all of the changes that took place after the launch of OzodWiki were a direct result of the project, most of these changes occurred while the project was running. While the main page of the Uzbek Wikipedia was viewed 20,368 times in January 2014, it was viewed 56,274 times in March of the same year. In April 2013, the main page was visited only 12,134 times, but in April 2014, the main page was viewed a record 136,592 times.

### WikiStipendiya

In May 2022, the Agency for Youth Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan launched the WikiStipendiya edit-a-thon in collaboration with the Agency of Information and Mass Communications under the Administration of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Council of Young Artists, and the Wikimedians of the Uzbek language User Group. The edit-a-thon was inspired by a decree of Shavkat Mirziyoyev on improving the presence of the Uzbek language in the digital world.
The name of the project is a portmanteau of the words "wiki" and "stipendiya" (scholarship). It focuses on encouraging content creation on the Uzbek Wikipedia, particularly by students, but is not limited to any group. Another goal was to increase the number of editors on Uzbek-language wikis.
According to Nodir Atayev, a long-term Uzbek Wikipedian from Kyrgyzstan, before 2022, government agencies reviewed Uzbek Wikipedia and created various sample articles, recognizing that Uzbek Wikipedia is a part of the digital world. After the inspections, people from the Youth Affairs Agency contacted Uzbek admins and Wikipedians for the possibility of a collaboration that materialized in the WikiStipendiya contest in 2022. Notably, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev congratulated the Uzbek community for the contest in a speech on 30 June 2022.
Since the beginning of the contest, the number of new articles has soared to 200-400 articles per day, and many vital articles have been made. On 3 July 2022, Uzbek Wikipedia reached 150,000 articles. On 2 August 2022, Uzbek reached 159,000 articles after a drive to create articles about archaeological sites in Uzbekistan resulted in nearly 3,000 articles that day. In the first week of August, Uzbek Wikipedia conducted the WikiOromgoh (WikiCamp) program, hosted by the Agency for Youth Affairs and the local Wikimedians catering to young Wikipedians. The project, a part of WikiStipendiya, added more than 8 thousand articles in one week. The 8 thousand articles are spread in many thematic units.
On 26 November 2022, Uzbek Wikipedia reached 200,000 articles, after several thousands of articles, many of them about settlements in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan, as well as about many other topics, were added during the second WikiCamp, which takes place from 23 to 29 November 2022. On 29 June 2024, the Uzbek Wikipedia reached 300,000 articles.

## Policies
### Script

While articles in the Uzbek Wikipedia are written using the Latin script, historically the Uzbek language has used many different alphabets. Before 1928, Uzbek was written in an Arabic-based alphabet by the literate population. Between 1928 and 1940, it was written in a Latin alphabet which was different from the Latin alphabet that is used today. Starting from 1940, Uzbek began to be written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which remained the predominant form of writing until 1993.
A new Latin alphabet was introduced to Uzbek after Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union. Currently, the Latin script is used in school and university textbooks, some newspapers, and some official papers. Since 2004 some official websites have switched over to using the Latin script when writing in Uzbek. However, the use of Cyrillic is still widespread, especially among older Uzbeks and among Uzbeks who live in other countries.
Currently, the Uzbek Wikipedia has a function ("vikifikator", literally "wikifier") that allows editors to easily convert Cyrillic text into Latin while editing. In August 2012, a Latin-to-Cyrillic converter was added to allow users to view Uzbek Wikipedia's pages in both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts.

### Other policies

Whereas in the English Wikipedia autoconfirmed status is required to move pages, edit semi-protected pages, and upload files, in the Uzbek edition these actions are not restricted. At the moment there are 13 administrators in the Uzbek Wikipedia.

## Content

The Uzbek Wikipedia lacks articles on contemporary political life in Uzbekistan. However, in 2012 the Uzbek Wikipedia started to grow fast despite being blocked in Uzbekistan and since that time the number of well-written articles on important subjects has increased significantly. In 2013, the coverage of the Uzbek Wikipedia expanded noticeably after all of the articles of the National Encyclopedia of Uzbekistan were added to it using a bot. Currently, most articles on the Uzbek Wikipedia are about populated places, astronomical objects, people, music, and football. Many articles about Uzbekistan have been written since the WikiStipendiya article contest, including articles about recent political events and social issues.
Like in many other Wikipedias, Uzbek Wikipedia editors jointly determine featured and good articles. Currently, there are 11 featured and 22 good articles on the Uzbek Wikipedia. The most comprehensive articles are entries about stars, philosophy, the Republic of Korea, Tehran, Aleppo, Karabulak, Texas, Encyclopædia Britannica, Ali-Shir Nava'i, Cristiano Ronaldo, and the British Empire.
In Uzbekistan, despite that the Cyrillic alphabet was replaced with a Latin one in 1992, Cyrillic continues to be used very widely in the country. Due to this, Cyrillic enjoys some use in Uzbek Wikipedia; there are pages written in the Cyrillic alphabet instead of Latin or exhibit a mixed use of both. For example, the page about the Chinese leader Mao Zedong is written mostly in Cyrillic except for a few captions.
Since the beginning of the WikiStipendiya article contest, the situation in Uzbek has improved. Many significant articles have been added, more people have been inspired to contribute to the encyclopedia and more people feel confident to use the encyclopedia for information.

## Statistics

The number of articles in the Uzbek Wikipedia reached 10,000 on 5 June 2012. The 10,000th article was on the compass. A month later, on 5 July 2012, the article count of the encyclopedia reached 20,000. The 20,000th article was on the topic of meteorology. The Uzbek Wikipedia reached 50,000 articles on 8 November 2012. The 50,000th article was on quadratic equations. The encyclopedia reached 100,000 articles on 20 March 2013. The 100,000th article was on labor force. These increases in the number of articles were mostly achieved with the help of bots.
As of March 2025, the Uzbek Wikipedia has 291,538 articles. There are 157,824 users, 441 of whom have made at least one edit in the last 30 days. At the moment only 13 users have administrator rights. The total number of pages on the Uzbek Wikipedia (including talk pages, categories, etc.) is 1,097,331. The total number of edits is 5,415,066. The editing depth of the Uzbek Wikipedia, which is a rough indicator of the encyclopedia's collaborative quality, is 37.7. Based on the List of articles every Wikipedia should have, the Uzbek Wikipedia ranks 64th. Since 2018 the number of active users has more than doubled, from 785 in 2018 to nearly 2,000 in 2021, and the number of page views has increased to even 9 million page views in 2022. In November 2022 the number of page views of the Uzbek Wikipedia in Uzbekistan surpassed those of Russian for the first time, with Uzbek garnering 11.4 million page views in Uzbekistan during this month.
There are also approximately 60 thousand page views per month in Uzbek Wikipedia from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan each, due to the large Uzbek population in both countries. Some thousands of page views are also recorded in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, where there are sizeable Uzbek minorities.
Origin of views (June 2018) Source
Uzbekistan
51.4%
United States
33.5%
Russia
3.8%
China
3.6%
France
3.1%
Ukraine
1.3%
Netherlands
1.0%
Other
2.0% :
| Date | Articles |
| 15 January 2006 | 100 |
| 24 May 2006 | 500 |
| 28 May 2006 | 1000 |
| 5 June 2012 | 10 000 |
| 5 July 2012 | 20 000 |
| 31 July 2012 | 30 000 |
| 27 August 2012 | 40 000 |
| 8 November 2012 | 50 000 |
| 29 November 2012 | 60 000 |
| 4 January 2013 | 70 000 |
| 13 February 2013 | 80 000 |
| 10 March 2013 | 90 000 |
| 20 March 2013 | 100 000 |
| 26 November 2022 | 200 000 |
| 24 June 2024 | 300 000 |

## Censorship

Wikipedia had been briefly blocked twice in Uzbekistan. in 2007 and 2008. The Uzbek Wikipedia was blocked in Uzbekistan around the end of September and beginning of October 2011, attracting international media attention in late February 2012 following RFE/RL's report about the blockage on 16 February 2012. Internet users in Uzbekistan trying to access Uzbek-language pages got redirected to msn.com of Microsoft. Later the pages of the encyclopedia simply failed to load. Users in Uzbekistan could open Wikipedia articles in other languages, as only the Uzbek Wikipedia was blocked.
The reason for the blockage of the Uzbek Wikipedia has not been disclosed. Some expressed the view that the encyclopedia had been blocked because the Uzbek government was concerned about the appearance of articles critical of its actions. Sarah Kendzior, an American anthropologist, speculated that the Uzbek Wikipedia had been blocked simply as an "act of showmanship" because the government of Uzbekistan sees Uzbek-language content as subject to its jurisdiction.
Despite the blockage, articles in the Uzbek-language Wikipedia could be accessed on an HTTPS connection. Therefore, in 2013 Google started indexing pages of the Uzbek Wikipedia with HTTPS by default, and visitors to the Uzbek Wikipedia started to be automatically connected through HTTPS connections. Between 2013 and 2019, users in Uzbekistan could generally access pages of the Uzbek Wikipedia without major problems. In May 2019, the government of Uzbekistan unblocked several news and rights websites, including Voice of America, BBC's Uzbek Service, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. Users in Uzbekistan have not faced any issues while accessing the Uzbek Wikipedia since then.