Colin Morris, who has written a few Wikipedia articles that don't get many views, was interested in finding the least-viewed article on Wikipedia. He performed an interesting data analysis of Wikipedia articles, and learned that the least-viewed articles have two things about them: they have "little popular interest" and are unlikely to be chosen when you click Wikipedia's not-so-random "Random article" button.
Here's Morris's list of the 500 least-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2021. Here are the bottom ten. None of the articles had more than 5 views in 2021:
- Trichromia phaeocrota – Species of moth (3 views)
- Opharus corticea – Species of moth (3 views)
- Wanshousi station – Beijing Subway station (3 views)
- Yimnashana hamulata – Species of beetle (4 views)
- Telihigala – Village in Sri Lanka (4 views)
- Hybolasiopsis abnormalis – Genus of beetles (4 views)
- Gnorimoschema debenedictisi – Species of moth (5 views)
- Pseudoneuroterus mazandarani – Species of wasp (5 views)
- Deiannewela – Village in Sri Lanka (5 views)
- Phenacoceratidae – Extinct family of molluscs (5 views)
"The list is remarkably consistent in its subject matter," he says:
- A significant majority of them are about species or other taxons of insects (plus 17 gastropods, and one fungus).
- The next most common category is obscure geographical features, especially (for some reason) towns in Iran and Sri Lanka. My favourite of these is the deliciously laconic Kälberbuckel.
- One other recurring genre are set index articles like C24H31FO5, Dottley, Sukmanovka, and Great polemonium. (A set index article is a page which looks and functions like a disambiguation page but isn't, because of reasons.)
Upshot: If you want to write the least popular article on Wikipedia, do one about a Sri Lankan moth.