The Top 25 Report

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (December 4 to 10, 2016)

Prepared with commentary by Milowent.

← Last week's report – Next week's report →

India rising: Topics from India, usually films, often make this chart. But the death of Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, is notable for rising to #1 and over 4 million views, though never before appearing on the chart. Former minister M. G. Ramachandran also placed #5. It took 678K views to hit the Top 10, the lowest threshold since the slow week of October 16-22.

For the week of December 4 to 10, 2016, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Jayalalithaa	4,067,619	Jayalalithaa Jayaram was an Indian actress and politician who served five terms as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, for over fourteen years between 1991 and 2016. She fell ill in September 2016, and died on December 5 after a long hospitalization. India declared a day of national mourning, while the state of Tamil Nadu declared seven days of mourning.
2	John Glenn	1,280,797	The first American astronaut to orbit Earth in 1962, and later a United States Senator. With all the notable deaths this year, it makes me think that the 20th century itself really died in 2016. Yes, the icons of every century linger into the next, but if you want to draw a line, this year seems like a good one.
3	Westworld (TV series)	1,272,033	The season finale episode, The Bicameral Mind, aired on December 4.
4	Rømer's determination of the speed of light	997,296	A Google Doodle celebrated the 350th anniversary of this scientific milestone. Also an interesting article on a topic I knew nothing about.
5	M. G. Ramachandran	861,766	Indian actor who was Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from 1977-87, so no doubt popular due to #1.
6	Junaid Jamshed	861,766	This popular Pakistani recording artist died on December 7 in the crash of Pakistan International Airlines Flight 661.
7	Deaths in 2016	761,247	The deaths list has always acted as this list's lodestone; it is so consistent on a day-to-day basis that where it appears is an indication of the weekly traffic levels. That said, we may have to recalibrate our mathematics, since its numbers have been slowly going up over the last few weeks, and continued this week.
8	Kirk Douglas	759,816	This American actor turned 100 on December 9.
9	Attack on Pearl Harbor	694,555	The 75th anniversary of Japan's attack on the United States, which led to the U.S.'s entry into World War II, occurred on December 7. The memorial services held for the event will likely be the last major gathering of living survivors of the attack.
10	Last Tango in Paris	678,802	Details about the infamous rape scene in this 1972 movie caused controversy this week.
11	Maria Schneider (actress)	650,358	The actress in the infamous scene in #10
12	Sasikala Natarajan	639,591	A close confidante of #1. Likely to succeed Jayalalithaa as AIADMK party general secretary.
13	Elizabeth II	637,229	For yet another week, the longest-reigning British monarch in history places on this list thanks to The Crown, a $100 million melodrama about her early years where she is played by Claire Foy.
14	Donald Trump	597,217	Numbers continue to drop since the November 8 United States presidential election, 2016 (#22).
15	John Christie (murderer)	596,991	The English serial killer of the 1940s and 1950s is now portrayed in the BBC drama Rillington Place. And while I am sure this article title is appropriate, I wonder how many biographies we have with "(murderer)" in the title. It stands out a lot more than the mundane John Christie (opera manager), that's for sure.
16	Nicaraguan Sign Language	558,521	This is from Reddit.
17	The Mummy (2017 film)	531,103	A reboot of the Mummy franchise, coming in June 2017.
18	Time Person of the Year	502,107	An interesting list to peruse. Yes, it was Donald Trump (#14) this year. Kind of takes the luster off my own 2006 win.
19	Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (film)	477,776	The cinematic spinoff to the Harry Potter series, set in 1920s New York, and scripted by the books' author herself, JK Rowling (pictured).
20	Moana (2016 film)	470,700	The box office of this Disney animated film released on November 23 is already up to about $250 million.
21	Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon	449,886	The only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II, she is portrayed by Vanessa Kirby in The Crown television series.
22	United States presidential election, 2016	449,573	Still popular for another week as people refresh their screens occasionally to make sure Wikipedia was not vandalized (by Russia?).
23	Transformers: The Last Knight	447,056	Due for release in June 2017, the first teaser trailer was released on December 5.
24	TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs (2016)	445,647	From the title, I was wondering how some home improvement show made the Top 25. But, no, its wrestling, and the eighth entry into the WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs history books. A.J. Styles (pictured) won the main event.
25	Christopher Reeve	439,107	This American actor, best known for playing Superman, and later known for his charity work after becoming a quadriplegic in an accident in 1995, died in October 2004. He was famous then. E.g., Reeve's article was the fourth most popular article of the month in October 2004. But his fame also endures to a large extent. Most of the views this week came on December 8, no doubt due to a Reddit thread, as he has been the subject of many many popular Reddit threads.

Exclusions

This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.

Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.