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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Alan Liefting (talk | contribs) at 19:10, 27 January 2013 (Category tree: some more words.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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.

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 is shown:


Category:History Category:History by location Category:History by country
Category:History of Australia Category:History of New South Wales
Category:History of the United States Category:History of California
Category:History of Zambia

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 that contains information about that particular subject.