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.
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)
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.
Mhh i wonder how this would have evolved, since, you know, for 99.99% of time, humans didn't really get any information other than from their immediate proximity. And if they did (e.g. earthquake), it was very much relevant and should affect them.
I'm at least a tiny bit less ignorant on biology than psychology. I don't think this is the kind of thing that does evolve.
Normally more general capacities than that evolve. We've evolved the ability to learn and adapt, and that's what we're using to create these heuristics. But I don't people evolve into individual beliefs/attitudes in that way.
Related: You can also check geotagged Wikipedia pages on a map: https://wiki-map.com/
A fun way to find articles nearby that need photographs is Wikishootme - https://wikishootme.toolforge.org/ (although it seems to be offline at the moment).
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' ;)
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 ;)
Doesn't the Wikipedia iOS app already have a feature exactly like this and every map solution that's posted in this comment section? Do they add anything?
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!
most of the things within a half-hour walk from us are actually banned on wikipedia because they're not notable enough.. i was expecting this site to let us freely add "those forbidden" things. i had high hopes when reading the title alone..
turns out, it just filters existing wikipedia articles based on their proximity to a given coordinate.
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.
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!
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, ...
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Wow this is surprisingly useful to explore local data, thanks for building!!
I wonder: why are you calculating PageRank, are the wiki article views not enough?
If I play around with the importance slider, PageRank seems to have much less difference between articles, highlighting just a few articles per city in large text.
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.
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...
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)
[0] Not that my expectation has any weight, I have close to zero knowledge of psychology.
Just flaunting my ignorance of biology here.
Normally more general capacities than that evolve. We've evolved the ability to learn and adapt, and that's what we're using to create these heuristics. But I don't people evolve into individual beliefs/attitudes in that way.
A fun way to find articles nearby that need photographs is Wikishootme - https://wikishootme.toolforge.org/ (although it seems to be offline at the moment).
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' ;)
FTFY. I live in Japan and it also shows me the distance in yards and miles.
... that A is a commune in the X department in western France?
... that B is a commune in the X department in western France?
... that C is a commune in the X department in western France?
... that D is a commune in the X department in western France?
... that E is a commune in the X department in western France?
... that F is a commune in the X department in western France?
Yes, I knew. They're all nearby communes. If I go in any direction, I can't miss them.
turns out, it just filters existing wikipedia articles based on their proximity to a given coordinate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby
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.
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.
https://www.location-guard.com/
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/change-geolocation-...
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.
Because of earthquakes maybe?
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...
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!
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!!
[1] https://openworldapp.xyz
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.
Been around over 20 years
(although I guess the German Wikipedia would have a bit more content than the English Wikipedia used here)
> 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.
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.
Found an abbey around my place in Western Bavaria I didn't know existed
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby
A yard is just 10% short of a meter, just the same thing for most practical purposes.
(full disclosure: I did look these up)
Has local language too.
It shows all Wikipedia articles on a zoomable map. The size of the labels depends on its pagerank score and the pageview statistics.
I wonder: why are you calculating PageRank, are the wiki article views not enough?
If I play around with the importance slider, PageRank seems to have much less difference between articles, highlighting just a few articles per city in large text.
https://grokipedia.com