Queen Elizabeth is one of the world’s most recognizable celebrities, and Wikipedia says the proof is in the views.
According to a Wikipedia blog authored by Ed Erhart, Senior Editorial Associate at the Wikimedia Foundation, Queen Elizabeth was recently honored as the third-most popular entry in 2017.
The Wikipedia blog states there are other Queen Elizabeth-related articles readers are visiting as well such as the popular television series’, The Crown and Victoria.
On top of Queen Elizabeth, Meghan Markle, Princess Margaret, Queen Victoria, and Prince Philip also made the top 50 list for Wikipedia in 2017. In fact, Meghan Markle was only two places behind Queen Elizabeth on the Wikipedia 2017 list.
However, despite being third on the list, Queen Elizabeth was the second-most popular person since “deaths in 2017” was first with 37,387,010 readers. Queen Elizabeth was most commonly searched as “Elizabeth II” by Wikipedia readers, and she tallied 19,290,956 views.
The only person that outranked Queen Elizabeth for the 2017 Wikipedia list was President Donald Trump with 29,644,764 viewers.
The Wikipedia blog post was quick to point out Donald Trump’s viewers actually decreased in 2017 since he had almost 75 million page views in 2016.
In 2016, Wikipedia‘s most-read list included Queen Elizabeth at thirteenth place with almost 17 million views.
Regardless, Queen Elizabeth may never officially outrank Donald Trump, but she is a permanent fixture on the Wikipedia all-time readers list compiled since 2007.
According to their past 10 years of data, Queen Elizabeth is holding steady at 42 million views, and is ranked at number 11 on Wikipedia‘s list called “Modern Political Leaders.”
Wikipedia also stated that, in the past 10 years, the most popular search for a person is for Donald Trump with 125.4 million views. Following Donald Trump is former President Barack Obama with 114.6 million views, Michael Jackson with 96.3 million, and Lady Gaga with 92.3 million.
Ranking high on a popularity list like Wikipedia‘s is nothing new to Queen Elizabeth, and Newsweek pointed out in 2016 that her fanbase has grown rapidly as she has approached 90.
According to an Ipsos MORI poll conducted by King’s College London, around 75 percent of British people think Queen Elizabeth is important to the future of the U.K., and most wanted Her Majesty on the throne for as long as possible.
In contrast, when Princess Diana died on August 31, 1997, the monarchy and Queen Elizabeth were not as popular with the public, according to BBC.
Adding to this, according to professor Roger Mortimore at King’s College London, the Ipsos MORI poll in 2017 was also surprising to him since almost 50 percent of the public wanted Queen Elizabeth to retire in 1981.