--- title: "How long to read all of English Wikipedia? about 41 years" description: "All of English Wikipedia takes about 41 years — about 5.2 billion words across 7.2 million articles. What that assumes, how it breaks down, and how long at a realist" url: https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/english-wikipedia/ site: "At One Place" --- # How long does it take to read all of English Wikipedia? **How long to read all of English Wikipedia: about 41 years** about 5.2 billion words across 7.2 million articles English Wikipedia is around 5.2 billion words across some 7.2 million articles, which at an ordinary reading speed is about 41 years of continuous reading with no sleeping, eating or stopping. Reading eight hours a day every day it would take around 125 years. The encyclopedia grows faster than anyone can read it: it adds far more than 5.2 billion divided by 41 years of new text annually, so the task is not merely long but formally impossible. Pew Research put the figure at roughly 38 years in 2026 without stating its reading-speed assumption. ## The numbers - **Total:** 15172 days 17 hours - **In hours:** 364,146 hours - **Non-stop:** 15,172.7 days without sleeping - **Covers:** about 5.2 billion words across 7.2 million articles - **At a realistic pace:** eight hours a day - **That works out as:** about 45,519 days ## What this assumes About 5.2 billion words at 238 words per minute, reading continuously without breaks. The corpus grows while you read, so this is a lower bound on an impossible task. > Article and word counts as of early 2026 and rising continuously. ## Other books | What | How long | | --- | --- | | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | about 5 hours 23 minutes | | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix | about 18 hours | | The Hobbit | about 6 hours 39 minutes | | The Bible | about 55 hours | | War and Peace | about 40 hours | | Infinite Jest | about 40 hours | | Moby-Dick | about 15 hours | | Ulysses | about 19 hours | | Dune | about 13 hours | | Pride and Prejudice | about 8 hours 33 minutes | | Nineteen Eighty-Four | about 6 hours 14 minutes | | The Great Gatsby | about 3 hours 18 minutes | | Animal Farm | about 2 hours 6 minutes | | It | about 31 hours | | The complete works of Shakespeare | about 59 hours | | The complete Sherlock Holmes | about 72 hours as an audiobook | ## Common questions ### How long does it take to read all of English Wikipedia? about 41 years — about 5.2 billion words across 7.2 million articles. ### What does that assume? About 5.2 billion words at 238 words per minute, reading continuously without breaks. The corpus grows while you read, so this is a lower bound on an impossible task. ### How long at a realistic pace? eight hours a day — about 45,519 days. ## Related pages - [How long to read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/harry-potter-philosophers-stone/) - [How long to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/harry-potter-order-of-the-phoenix/) - [How long to read The Hobbit?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/the-hobbit/) - [How long to read the Bible?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/the-bible/) - [How long to read War and Peace?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/war-and-peace/) - [How long to read Infinite Jest?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/infinite-jest/) - [How long to read Moby-Dick?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/moby-dick/) - [How long to read Ulysses?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/ulysses/) - [How long to read the Harry Potter series?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/harry-potter-series/) - [How long to watch Friends?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/friends/) - [How long to watch One Piece?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/one-piece/) - [How long to watch The Simpsons?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/the-simpsons/) - [How long to watch The Office (US)?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/the-office-us/) - [How long to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/marvel-cinematic-universe/) ## Sources - Calculated on this page — At One Place (/about/)