Get description

GET	/core/v1/{project}/{language}/page/{title}/description

Returns a description of a page. A page description is a short, plain-text phrase summarizing the page’s topic. While descriptions are available for most pages, some pages may not have a description. In case of a missing description, the API returns a 404 error.

Most Wikimedia projects get page descriptions from the corresponding topic on Wikidata, a free repository of structured knowledge. Page descriptions from Wikidata are licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain.

Examples

curl

# Get a short description of the Earth article on English Wikipedia
$ curl https://api.wikimedia.org/core/v1/wikipedia/en/page/Earth/description

Python

# Python 3
# Get a short description of the Earth article on English Wikipedia

import requests

page = 'Earth'
url = 'https://api.wikimedia.org/core/v1/wikipedia/en/page/' + page + '/description'

headers = {
  'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  'User-Agent': 'YOUR_APP_NAME (YOUR_EMAIL_OR_CONTACT_PAGE)'
}

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)
data = response.json()
print(data)

PHP

<?php
// Get a short description of the Earth article on English Wikipedia

$url = 'https://api.wikimedia.org/core/v1/wikipedia/en/page/Earth/description';
$authorization = 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN';

$ch = curl_init( $url );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array( $authorization ));
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, 'YOUR_APP_NAME (YOUR_EMAIL_OR_CONTACT_PAGE)' );
$output = curl_exec( $ch );
curl_close( $ch );

echo( $output );
?>

JavaScript

// Get a short description of the Earth article on English Wikipedia

let url = 'https://api.wikimedia.org/core/v1/wikipedia/en/page/Earth/description';
let response = await fetch( url,
    {
        headers: {
            'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN',
            'Api-User-Agent': 'YOUR_APP_NAME (YOUR_EMAIL_OR_CONTACT_PAGE)'
        }
    }
);
response.json()
    .then(console.log).catch(console.error);

Parameters

project required path	Project name. For example: wikipedia (encyclopedia articles), commons (images, audio, and video), wiktionary (dictionary entries). List all projects.
language required path	Language code. For example: ar (Arabic), en (English), es (Spanish). List supported languages. Note: This endpoint does not support commons or other multilingual projects.
title required path	Wiki page title with spaces replaced with underscores

Headers

Accept-Language optional

Some Wikimedia projects include content in more than one script. For example, Kurdish Wikipedia includes content in both Latin and Arabic scripts. For languages that support multiple scripts, use this header to specify the script. For example, Accept-Language: ku-arab to request the Kurdish language in Arabic script. Defaults to the wiki's primary script. Supported languages Language (local) Language (English) Code Variant Code Qırımtatarca Crimean Tatar crh Latin latn Cyrillic cyrl 贛語 Gan gan Simplified hans Traditional hant ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ Inuktitut iu Latin latn Syllabics cans Қазақша Kazakh kk Latin latn Cyrillic cyrl Arabic arab Kurdî / كوردی Kurdish ku Latin latn Arabic arab Српски / Srpski Serbian sr Latin el Cyrillic ec Тоҷикӣ Tajik tg Latin latn Cyrillic cyrl O‘zbek Uzbek uz Latin latin Cyrillic cyrl 中文 Chinese zh Simplified zh-hans Simplified, China zh-cn Simplified, Singapore zh-sg Simplified, Malaysia zh-my Traditional hant Traditional, Taiwan zh-tw Traditional, Hong Kong zh-hk Traditional, Macau zh-mo

Responses

200	Success: Article found. Returns the description property. Example { "description": "Third planet from the Sun in the Solar System" }
404	Error: Description not found Example { "status": 404, "type": "not_found", "title": "Short description not found", "detail": "404: not_found", "method": "GET", "uri": "REQUEST_URL" }