Vital articles are lists of subjects for which the English Wikipedia should have corresponding featured-class articles. They serve as centralized watchlists to track the quality status of Wikipedia's most important articles and to give editors guidance on which articles to prioritize for improvement. The most important articles are in Level 1.
This list is in the process of being created. Everyone is welcome to participate. If you see an article that you think should be included in an incomplete section, then add it to the list. If you are unsure, then you can propose it on the talk page. Please do not remove articles which have some reasonable chance of staying here upon completion. If something was added which seems obviously not able to stand as one of the 50,000 then you can remove it, with discussion if contested, always assuming good faith. Mass deletes of articles should always be preceded by discussion. Additions AND removals to sections that are complete or nearly complete should be discussed. Sections that are at 98% or more of their capacity have been tagged as "complete" below.
This list is tailored to the English-language Wikipedia. There are also Vital Article lists tailored to different Wikipedia languages accessible via the languages sidebar.
Because of its size, Vital articles Level 5 has been split into many sublists. If you spot a duplicate listing, please remove one of them; if you aren't sure in which section a topic belongs, please initiate a discussion on the talk page.
As of October 4, 2021 this list includes 45,420 individual articles.
|List No.||Section||Count as of October 4, 2021||Target number||Complete?|
|1.1||Writers and journalists||2,156||2,000||Yes|
|1.2||Artists, musicians, and composers||2,301||2,300||Yes|
|1.3||Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters||2,338||2,100||Yes|
|1.4||Philosophers, historians, and social scientists||1,252||1,300||No|
|1.6||Politicians and leaders||2,442||2,300||Yes|
|1.7||Military personnel, revolutionaries, and activists||979||1,000||No|
|1.8||Scientists, inventors, and mathematicians||1,093||1,100||Yes|
|3.2||Countries and subdivisions||1,395||1,400||Yes|
|5||Philosophy and religion||1,404||1,400||Yes|
|6.1||Sports, games and recreation||1,224||1,150||Yes|
|7||Society and social sciences||4,640||4,000||Yes|
|8||Biological and health sciences||3,399||6,400||No|
|8.1||Biology, biochemistry, anatomy, and physiology||885||1,600||No|
|8.3||Plants, fungi, and other organisms||604||1,200||No|
|8.4||Health, medicine, and disease||677||1,200||No|
|9.1||Basics and measurement||345||400||No|