today at 8:23 AM
Weird psychological quirk: otherwise banal articles seem much more pertinent when they happen to be nearby (I just read about a random plane crash from decades ago but felt very invested in it, due to proximity).
Wonder if this is related to the biological phenomena of humans tending to care more about humans who resemble themselves than those who don't (homophily)
today at 8:29 AM
I don't know if that is a psychological quirk - it seems pretty rational to me. We are more affected by events that happen close to us than those that happen far away, so instinctively finding local events more interesting than distant ones seems like what I'd expect[0].
[0] Not that my expectation has any weight, I have close to zero knowledge of psychology.
today at 6:54 AM
This is a great idea but I'd definitely make the distance configurable. Where I am right now would need several hours walking to reach anywhere Wikipedia worthy but if I expanded to say a 15km circle there's probably a couple of places of interest.
Meanwhile if someone lives in a city they'll get loads of results.
EDIT: actually this is just a wrapper around wikipedia's nearby feature I think. I tried a couple of places and they give identical results.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby#/coord/15.90721...
today at 7:51 AM
Time to promote my project: https://tomthe.github.io/wiki-importance-map
It shows all Wikipedia articles on a zoomable map. The size of the labels depends on its pagerank score and the pageview statistics.
today at 8:05 AM
Cool map but FYI most of the ones near me are just random buildings that don't even have Wikipedia articles.
today at 8:10 AM
Oh, yes. It also includes all Wikidata entries with geocoordinates, but they have the lowest "importance" and are only shown very small. You need to zoom out a bit to see places with articles.
today at 8:13 AM
Would it be possible to filter this to only show wikipedia objects?
today at 7:29 AM
Distances measured in yards for European destinations is an insult
today at 8:09 AM
Hmm, I see metric distances (kilometers). Accessing from Germany. It's still using the English Wikipedia though, not the German one (which I think would have more local content).
PS: there's a side bar link to switch between miles and km, I might have pressed that (was expecting to see some sort of distance map though instead of switching between 'imperial' and 'modern' ;)
today at 7:59 AM
And mixes it with miles, too. Crazy decision.
today at 8:16 AM
Could that be a UK thing? I wouldn't know tbh, because between mixing yards and miles versus sticking to imperial units in the 21st century, the latter is definitely crazier ;)
today at 8:20 AM
Yep, we mix them up. Distance and speed in miles, fuel priced in pounds per litre.
today at 7:33 AM
To convert to meters, multiply by 1.
today at 7:46 AM
That's an imperial meter, a standard SI meter is about ten percent longer.
today at 7:56 AM
I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than two meters!
today at 8:16 AM
Multiply by 0.914
today at 8:06 AM
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today at 7:58 AM
> Distances measured in yards for non-US destinations is an insult
FTFY. I live in Japan and it also shows me the distance in yards and miles.
today at 8:18 AM
Mine is all of the local schools and then a cold war nuclear bunker that I didn't know about
today at 8:24 AM
Same. Nearby villages, churches, schools, and then a random Edwardian sewage pumping station that is open to the public. TIL!
today at 6:32 AM
This is super cool! Just punched in my zip code, and hit "random article" three times, and came up with three weird stories I didn't know about the history of places within a few blocks of me in Portland, Oregon. What an awesome idea for travelers!
today at 6:49 AM
Wikipedia has a nearby feature that works in other languages as well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby
today at 6:53 AM
Which I never used because it requires permission to see my location, and at home, my ISP gives a location far from where I live anyway. So even if I allowed it, it would be meaningless.
So, unless there is some way to manually enter a town name or ZIP code that I missed, the feature is unusable, which is a shame.
today at 6:57 AM
There is: the link format is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby#/coord/52.52000...
Change the lat long to any you want, and change "en." to other language codes to search a different (language) encyclopedia.
today at 7:00 AM
location can be set through browser add-ons or devtools/about:config
https://www.location-guard.com/
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/change-geolocation-...
today at 8:04 AM
Omg I love this so much mate! Incredible how much more relevant nearby articles feel than the default to which you have no personal connection. I also think local news are much better/useful for the same reason.
I'm working on something similar! Open World, an app that turns collecting nearby Wikipedia places into a game! [1]
It started with you having to go to the place IRL to unlock the article/story, mostly so you find cool spots out on a walk. But slowly I discovered that most people go on walks somewhat rarely, so now it also includes a virtual Fast-Travel system using Apple Maps LookAround :)
Oh, also a 3D map of the different neighbourhoods of a city to unlock one a time, plus narrative Quests to complete with the secrets you found, ...
Local History is fun!!
today at 7:56 AM
I used this during my walk around around Tirana, Albania this morning where I'm traveling right now. I learned some interesting history about the neighborhood I'm staying in. Also discovered some museums and buildings nearby that I'd like to check out now.
When I visit a new city I usually spend time poking around Google Maps to discover points of interest nearby, but this will be another useful resource. Thanks!
today at 6:37 AM
Awesome, I found that possibly the first bookstore cafe was in Palo Alto on Cal Ave! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printers_Inc._Bookstore
It's cool, but a bit sad, to discover establishments that used to exist nearby but don't any longer. It's not easy to do that otherwise.
today at 8:14 AM
Yes particularly in SF so many of the historical buildings seem to be gone :(
Because of earthquakes maybe?
today at 6:40 AM
Super cool idea! Would love support for other languages, as English Wikipedia is quite limited where I live.
today at 7:29 AM
Check out what slymax and esperent wrote in another comment[1].
You can let it pick your own location, and if you rewrite the language prefix at the beginning of the url, you get that language's version. [2][3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby#/coord/15.90721...
[2] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby#/coord/15.90721...
[3] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby#/coord/15.90721...
today at 7:31 AM
+1 from me one but even with 'just' english I was surprised at the amount and quality of stuff in my area.
today at 7:18 AM
same!
today at 6:33 AM
Is it possible to change the language of Wikipedia? For many places, the local language Wikipedia has more articles.
today at 7:20 AM
Yes!! And with today's translation programs, the user does not even need to understand the local language. Better — for me — would even be a mix of languages. Give me the most and longest articles of all languages for the places around.
today at 7:12 AM
Like others, I agree this is very cool.
I live somewhere pretty remote, and every article it suggests is an entry for a nearby village, which is usually a sentence long. There are other interesting things nearby: could it have some kind of variance function, so it looks specifically for a variety of content?
Here I am, seeing something cool and immediately asking for changes. Spirit of the internet ;) Genuinely, it is a wonderful idea, and I admire the concept and that you did it.
today at 8:12 AM
Very similar, except I live in a very large city... but it's not an anglophile 1st world country, so tr list is full of streets and unis and roads. "Hey do you know your <location> features <location station>!?" lol
today at 6:56 AM
Vey nicely done! One issue though, not many local articles in english here. I see no obvious way to change language?
today at 8:08 AM
Neat! A whole 25 articles for my neck of the wood :D
(although I guess the German Wikipedia would have a bit more content than the English Wikipedia used here)
today at 7:49 AM
The nearest place to me was
> 0.8 miles
Ok great I thought that I can walk...
however, it is actually 1.9 miles when walking according to Google Maps and the path lacks sidewalks.
today at 7:51 AM
Why is this not called Walkipedia?
today at 7:44 AM
I consider this to be far more progress for humanity than landing on moon or sending a spaceship to outside of solar system. That's because this move is in the right direction, while others are not. As a human, you need to first master your habitat around you, before getting excited or concerned about things that happen in another country thousands of miles away.
today at 7:47 AM
You wouldn't even have spices thinking like that
today at 6:27 AM
Cool idea! I had lots of fun looking at stuff nearby.
Right now it seems that it simply removes links for stuff without a geotag that's nearby. But many articles are in fact nearby and are simply missing geotags, or perhaps encompass a slightly larger area where only a part of it is close by. Also, all the pictures don't have working links so I can't click on a picture to make it bigger.
today at 6:52 AM
I found out that a closed church I walk past regularly was called "St Chad's"
today at 6:53 AM
Related: OsmAnd has support for wikipedia-sourced points for the local offline maps. Not sure about the details though. Only related thing I found for an explanation is "Geospatial Wikidata Dataset", which is suspiciously fresh.
today at 7:27 AM
Very cool idea. Would be even better if it had an option to use a local language.
today at 7:21 AM
Content that is curated by interested humans, without commercial interests, is so good.
today at 6:49 AM
This is so cool, although I would like a feature to filter by subtopic or what the structures are used for (e.g. churches, bridges, museums).
today at 7:27 AM
This is the World Wide Web I want to see. Amazing job. Thank you!
today at 6:27 AM
Very cool. Obvious in hindsight with every location having coordinates.
Found an abbey around my place in Western Bavaria I didn't know existed
today at 7:58 AM
Checked Hong Kong, not much on the page
today at 6:27 AM
I love it. It would also be nice to be able to a) enter desired distance, and b) choose the metric system.
today at 6:39 AM
c) select the Wikipedia language. There are some English Wikipedia articles for my region, but my local language Wikipedia has much more
today at 6:37 AM
thanks a lot, +1 für b).
today at 8:02 AM
today at 7:16 AM
This is a really fun idea, but I went from excited to disgusted in the span of one click.
The first thing that pops up for my city of Malmö is the school stabbing that happened in 2022. They're so rare here, and yet Wikipedia felt I just had to see it.
I'm not going to make stupid feature requests, but it would be cool with a filter for types of Wikipedia articles to show.
today at 7:00 AM
I guess it works but I have no idea what a yard or a mile is.
today at 7:50 AM
A mile is supposed to be (1 / 60 / 360 / Earth.circumferenceOf()), so a 1.5mi radius or 3mi diameter circle is (supposed to be slightly short of) 3/60 or 0.05 degrees on a map.
A yard is just 10% short of a meter, just the same thing for most practical purposes.
(full disclosure: I did look these up)
today at 7:23 AM
Metric rules and imperial drools, I agree, but I reckon if we put our minds to it we can multiply by 0.9 and 1.6 (or 0.91 and 1.61 if you are genius). Keeps the mind sharp in this age of outsourced thinking!
today at 6:19 AM
This took too long to make.
today at 8:23 AM
Maybe because Wikipedia has it as a builtin feature ;) (tbf I wasn't aware of that either):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby
today at 8:04 AM
none Americans complaining about using yards is hilarious tbh
today at 6:59 AM
Very nice! It really should have a field to enter the radius of the search.
today at 6:57 AM
https://wiki-map.com/ considered much better.
Has local language too.
today at 6:58 AM
Osmand for android also embeds results on the map, as an optional layer.
today at 6:39 AM
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today at 7:02 AM
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today at 6:29 AM
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