Vital articles are lists of subjects for which the
English Wikipedia should have corresponding
featured-class articles . They serve as
centralized watchlists to track the quality status of Wikipedia's most important articles and to give editors guidance on which articles to prioritize for improvement. The most important articles are in Level 1.
This portal is tailored to the English-language Wikipedia. There is also a
list of one thousand articles considered vital to Wikipedias of all languages, as well as Vital Article lists tailored to different Wikipedia languages accessible via the languages sidebar.
Level 1 Vital article
Life is a quality that distinguishes
matter that has
biological processes , such as
signaling and self-sustaining processes, from matter that does not. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for
homeostasis ,
organisation ,
metabolism ,
growth ,
adaptation , response to
stimuli , and
reproduction . All life over time eventually reaches a state of
death , and none is
immortal . Many philosophical definitions of
living systems have been proposed, such as
self-organizing systems.
Viruses in particular make definition difficult as they replicate only in
host cells. Life exists all over the Earth in air, water, and
soil , with many
ecosystems forming the
biosphere . Some of these are harsh environments occupied only by
extremophiles . (
Full article... )
For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Vital Articles, visit
WikiProject Vital Articles .
Finish building out
Vital article Level 5 list
Make it easier for readers to access the list (better separate reader-focused and editor-focused pages)
Integrate random vital article tool somewhere (main page? sidebar?) for readers
Collaborate with other WikiProjects to focus attention on poor-quality high-level articles
Better integrate VA with the project-specific importance lists
Develop tools for helping identify VA candidates (one attempt:
most-viewed unlisted articles )
clean-up listing for Vital_Articles
Featured article
Hydrogen is a
chemical element ; it has
symbol H and
atomic number 1. It is the lightest element and, at
standard conditions , is a
gas of
diatomic molecules with the
formula H2 , sometimes called dihydrogen , but more commonly called hydrogen gas , molecular hydrogen or simply hydrogen. It is colorless, odorless, non-toxic, and highly
combustible . Constituting about 75% of all
normal
matter , hydrogen is the
most abundant chemical element in the
universe .
Stars , including the
Sun , mainly consist of hydrogen in a
plasma state , while on Earth, hydrogen is found in
water ,
organic compounds , as
dihydrogen , and in other
molecular forms . The most common
isotope of hydrogen (protium, 1 H) consists of one
proton , one
electron , and no
neutrons . (
Full article... )
Top 10 WikiProject Vital articles – Popular articles of the month
A selection of most-visited articles from the list of
popular pages
Image 2
YouTube is an American
social media and
online video sharing platform owned by
Google . YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by
Steve Chen ,
Chad Hurley , and
Jawed Karim , three former employees of
PayPal . Headquartered in
San Bruno, California , United States, it is the
second-most visited website in the world, after
Google Search . In January 2024, YouTube had more than 2.7 billion
monthly active users , who collectively watched more than one billion hours of videos every day. As of May 2019
[update] , videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of
content per minute, and as of 2023
[update] , there were approximately 14 billion videos in total. (
Full article... )
Image 3
The
United States of America (
USA ), commonly known as the
United States (
U.S. ) or
America , is a country primarily located in
North America . It is a
federal union of 50
states and a federal capital district,
Washington, D.C. The
48 contiguous states border
Canada to the north and
Mexico to the south, with the states of
Alaska to the northwest and the
archipelagic
Hawaii in the
Pacific Ocean . The United States also asserts sovereignty over five
major island territories and
various uninhabited islands . The country has the world's
third-largest land area ,
largest exclusive economic zone , and
third-largest population , exceeding 334 million. Its three
largest metropolitan areas are
New York ,
Los Angeles , and
Chicago , and its three
most populous states are
California ,
Texas , and
Florida . (
Full article... )
Image 4
Google LLC (
GOO -gəl) is an American-based
multinational corporation and
technology company focusing on
online advertising ,
search engine technology,
cloud computing , computer
software ,
quantum computing ,
e-commerce ,
consumer electronics , and
artificial intelligence (AI). It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world" and is one of the world's
most valuable brands due to its
market dominance ,
data collection , and technological advantages in the field of AI. Google's parent company,
Alphabet Inc. , is one of the five
Big Tech companies, alongside
Amazon ,
Apple ,
Meta , and
Microsoft . (
Full article... )
Image 5
India , officially the
Republic of India , is a country in
South Asia . It is the
seventh-largest country in the world by area and the
most populous country . Bounded by the
Indian Ocean on the south, the
Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the
Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with
Pakistan to the west;
China ,
Nepal , and
Bhutan to the north; and
Bangladesh and
Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of
Sri Lanka and the
Maldives ; its
Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with
Thailand , Myanmar, and
Indonesia . (
Full article... )
Image 7
World War II or the
Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a
global conflict between two coalitions: the
Allies and the
Axis powers .
Nearly all the world's countries —including all the
great powers —participated, with many investing all available economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities in pursuit of
total war , blurring the distinction between military and civilian resources.
Tanks and
aircraft played major roles , with the latter enabling the
strategic bombing of population centres and delivery of the
only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was the
deadliest conflict in history, resulting in
70 to 85 million deaths , more than half being civilians. Millions died in
genocides , including
the Holocaust of European Jews, as well as from massacres, starvation, and disease. Following the Allied powers' victory,
Germany ,
Austria ,
Japan , and
Korea were occupied, and
war crimes tribunals were conducted
against German and
Japanese leaders . (
Full article... )
Image 8
The
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland , commonly known as the
United Kingdom (
UK ) or
Britain , is a country in
Northwestern Europe , off the coast of
the continental mainland . It comprises
England ,
Scotland ,
Wales , and
Northern Ireland . The UK includes the island of
Great Britain , the north-eastern part of the island of
Ireland , and most of
the smaller islands within the
British Isles , making up a total area of 94,354 square miles (244,376 km
2 ). Northern Ireland shares
a land border with the
Republic of Ireland ; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the
Atlantic Ocean , the
North Sea , the
English Channel , the
Celtic Sea , and the
Irish Sea . The United Kingdom had an estimated population of over 68.2 million people in 2023. The capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom is
London ,
whose wider metropolitan area is the largest in
Western Europe , with a population of 14.9 million. The cities of
Edinburgh ,
Cardiff , and
Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, respectively. (
Full article... )
Categories
Select [►] to view subcategories.
Featured pictures
Top 1,000 (Levels 1 to 3)
People Geography Humanities Society Biological Sciences
User-suggested
SethAllen623's vital articles
Published lists Other article lists
Purge server cache