Help:Categories

For more extensive information for editors, see Help:Category.

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Categories are used in Wikipedia to link articles under a common topic and are found at the bottom of the article page. Clicking the category name displays a list of articles in that category, as well as any sub-categories. Categories allow readers to navigate through Wikipedia and find related articles.

The bottom of a Wikipedia article on Chicken eyeglasses. At the very bottom of the page, below the References, navigation templates and external links are a series of links. These links are the categories used on the page, which include: Category:Animal Welfare, Category:Animal equipment, Category:Eyewear, and Category:Poultry farming . By clicking on the category link at the bottom of the page, readers can navigate the Category tree (see below).

Category tree

All of the categories form a hierarchy, although sub-categories may be a member of more than one category. An example of a small part of this hierarchical structure looks somewhat like this:

Category:Main topic classifications ↓ Category:History ↓ Category:History by location ↓ Category:History by country ↓ Category:History of Australia ↓ Category:History of Australia by location ↓ Category:History of Australia by state or territory ↓ New South Wales, Queensland, etc.

The actual relationship is more complex since a category may appear as a subcategory of several other categories. The actual relationship of part of the category structure looks like this:

The uppermost category in the hierarchy is Category:Contents. From here all other categories branch out, including those that are used for the maintenance of Wikipedia.

If an entry in a category is shown in italics it is a redirect to an article of a different name or a section of an article that contains information about that particular subject.

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