Data study · Wikipedia readership in the AI answer era
English Wikipedia Lost 8.1% of Its Page Views Since 2022, the Smallest Drop Among Seven Major Languages; Spanish Lost 36.3%
Every major Wikipedia language edition we measured lost readers between 2022 and the past 12 months. English held up best among the seven major Western and Japanese editions we ranked, while Spanish, Portuguese and French fell far harder.
Analysis of monthly page views for 9 Wikipedia language editions, 2022 vs October 2025 to September 2026 · Wikimedia pageviews via BigQuery, October 2026
Key findings
- 1
English Wikipedia page views fell 8.1% between 2022 and the past 12 months, from 86.22 billion to 79.24 billion.
- 2
Spanish Wikipedia fell 36.3% over the same period, from 10.11 billion to 6.44 billion views, the largest drop of the seven main languages.
- 3
Portuguese fell 26.5%, French 20.5%, Italian 19.7%, German 14.8% and Japanese 13.1%.
- 4
Using matching months only (January to September 2022 vs 2026), English fell 9.0% and Spanish fell 37.0%, so English still fell least and Spanish most.
- 5
Mobile web carried 70.9% of Spanish Wikipedia views and 64.4% of English views in the past 12 months.
- 6
Russian Wikipedia fell 30.8% and Chinese 7.0%, but both are shaped by access restrictions and unusual traffic swings, so we report them separately.
Summary
Picture a dental clinic in Miami that runs its website in English and Spanish. The English pages slowly lose visitors to AI answers. The Spanish pages, which used to be a quiet advantage, seem to be losing visitors even faster. Wikipedia data suggests that experience is not unusual.
We compared total page views for the largest Wikipedia language editions between 2022 and the latest 12 months. English Wikipedia lost 8.1% of its views. Every other major language we measured lost more: Spanish 36.3%, Portuguese 26.5%, French 20.5%, Italian 19.7%, German 14.8% and Japanese 13.1%.
That cuts against a common assumption that non-English sites have more time because AI search features reached English first. On Wikipedia, readership in other languages has fallen further, not less.
What we measured
We used Wikimedia's public pageview logs in BigQuery and stored one monthly total per language and site (desktop and mobile web). For English we summed article-level views; for other languages we used whole-language totals.
We indexed each language to its 2022 total and compared it with the latest 12 complete months, October 2025 to September 2026. We also checked January to September of 2022 against the same months of 2026, and the 12 months before AI Overviews launched in the US.
English held up better than every other major language
Ranked by change, English sits at the top and Spanish at the bottom.
% change
| Language | 2022 views (billions) | Past 12 months (billions) | % change |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | 86.2 | 79.2 | -8.1 |
| Japanese | 12 | 10.4 | -13.1 |
| German | 9.87 | 8.41 | -14.8 |
| Italian | 5.7 | 4.58 | -19.7 |
| French | 8.92 | 7.09 | -20.5 |
| Portuguese | 2.98 | 2.19 | -26.5 |
| Spanish | 10.1 | 6.44 | -36.3 |
Source: aisearchoptimization.net analysis of monthly page views for 9 Wikipedia language editions, 2022 vs October 2025 to September 2026 · Wikimedia pageviews via BigQuery, October 2026
A similar order shows up when we compare only January to September of each year, with English still smallest and Spanish still largest: English -9.0%, Japanese -14.8%, French -16.2%, German -16.6%, Italian -21.8%, Portuguese -27.2% and Spanish -37.0%.
Most languages started sliding in 2024 and 2025
Indexing each language to its 2022 total shows when the slide began.
Index
| Period | English | Spanish | German | French | Japanese | Portuguese | Italian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| 2023 | 105.7 | 103.2 | 98.7 | 97.8 | 92.3 | 96 | 99.8 |
| 2024 | 105.1 | 94.9 | 97.9 | 93.7 | 90.7 | 95.2 | 96.9 |
| 2025 | 100.6 | 76.4 | 91 | 86.1 | 91 | 84.5 | 91 |
| Oct 2025 to Sep 2026 | 91.9 | 63.7 | 85.2 | 79.5 | 86.9 | 73.5 | 80.3 |
Source: aisearchoptimization.net analysis of monthly page views for 9 Wikipedia language editions, 2022 vs October 2025 to September 2026 · Wikimedia pageviews via BigQuery, October 2026
Spanish fell sharply in 2025. English was still at its 2022 level in 2025 and dropped only in the latest 12 months. French 2022 includes an unusual desktop spike late that year, which makes its decline look larger on desktop.
Mobile carries most reading in every language
The mobile share of reading differs by language.
| Language | Desktop change | Mobile web change | Mobile share, past 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | -9.9% | -7.1% | 64.4% |
| Spanish | -39.2% | -35.0% | 70.9% |
| German | -19.1% | -11.9% | 61.8% |
| French | -34.4% | -9.7% | 64.1% |
| Japanese | -15.0% | -12.2% | 68.0% |
| Portuguese | -21.6% | -28.9% | 64.9% |
| Italian | -16.9% | -20.6% | 73.6% |
Source: aisearchoptimization.net analysis of monthly page views for 9 Wikipedia language editions, 2022 vs October 2025 to September 2026 · Wikimedia pageviews via BigQuery, October 2026
In Spanish, both desktop and mobile web fell by more than a third. In English, neither fell by more than 10%.
What this means
If you run bilingual marketing, do not assume your Spanish or Portuguese content is safe from AI answers. Reference reading in those languages has dropped further than in English. A business serving Spanish-speaking customers should check how AI assistants answer questions in Spanish about its services, and an AI search optimization agency that only tests English prompts will miss that.
The fix is the same in any language: clear pages that state who you are, where you work and what you charge, so AI tools can quote you correctly. Our free AI visibility audit can test prompts in both languages, so you can compare your AI brand visibility in Spanish against English.
Limits
Wikimedia pageview counts include some automated traffic that its filters do not catch, and Wikimedia changed how it detects bots in 2025, which lowers counted views from that point on. Some of the change in any period may reflect better bot filtering rather than fewer human readers.
We count views of titles that had at least 5 views in a given month on a given site, which drops a very small tail of rarely read pages.
Non-English totals include all pages in that language edition, while English totals exclude non-article pages, so levels are not directly comparable; percentage changes are.
Language editions are read worldwide, so a language is not the same as a country.
Russian and Chinese Wikipedia are affected by government access restrictions and large traffic swings, so we do not rank them with the others. Russian fell 30.8% and Chinese 7.0%.
French 2022 views include an unusual desktop spike from September to December 2022.
Embed this research
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<iframe src="https://aisearchoptimization.net/embed/data-studies/wikipedia-readership-by-language" title="Spanish Wikipedia Views Fell 36.3%; English Fell 8.1%" width="100%" height="720" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>
Cite this study
APA
Grenyo, K. (2026). Spanish Wikipedia Views Fell 36.3%; English Fell 8.1%. AI Search Optimization. https://aisearchoptimization.net/resources/data-studies/wikipedia-readership-by-language
Plain link
Spanish Wikipedia Views Fell 36.3%; English Fell 8.1% - AI Search Optimization - https://aisearchoptimization.net/resources/data-studies/wikipedia-readership-by-language
Frequently asked questions
Which Wikipedia language lost the most readers?
Among the seven main editions we compared, Spanish Wikipedia lost the most. Its page views fell 36.3%, from 10.11 billion in 2022 to 6.44 billion in the past 12 months.
Did English Wikipedia lose fewer readers than other languages?
Yes. English fell 8.1% between 2022 and the past 12 months, the smallest drop among English, Japanese, German, Italian, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
When did non-English Wikipedia traffic start falling?
Most languages were close to their 2022 level in 2023 and began sliding in 2024 and 2025. Spanish was at 94.9% of its 2022 level in 2024 and 76.4% in 2025.
How much Wikipedia reading happens on mobile?
In the past 12 months, mobile web carried 64.4% of English views, 70.9% of Spanish views and 73.6% of Italian views.
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