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Local Wikipedia: Wikipedia, but only for things a half hour walk from you

https://edjefferson.com/localwiki/
1384sohkamyung | | 235 | HN
delichon | parent | next
The nearest Wikipedia entry to me is about a 3 hours 15 minute walk away, the nearest town. But there are so many interesting things closer, perhaps I should add them to the wiki. Twenty minutes to the north there's a pleasant shady area at the bottom of a canyon with a fallen log with a curve that fits my buttocks nicely. Fifteen minutes to the southeast there is a dead elk cow that has only been 3/4 eaten by the local coyotes, etc., and has a quite remarkable odor. To the northeast is the spot where I found a perfect arrowhead, the prize of my collection. But maybe it's better for me to horde these places to myself.
ASalazarMX | parent | next
I await with bated breath the entry about that ergonomic log.
etewiah | parent | next
I have just the thing for you. With a chattymap collection, you can tell stories about all those wonderful places and share them with the world:

https://chattymaps.com/collections

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ek_erilaz | parent | next
I wonder if its more common to notice interesting and special places when in nature versus in the built environment. All of your examples are from nature, and most of mine would be too. But considering it further... in college there was a nook I found on the second floor of a nondescript building, where lounge chairs were built into the floor and covered with astroturf, and at just after midday the sun would shine down on it through a sort of compluvium in the roof. I'd been on that campus for almost three years before I discovered it, and only visited a few times because it was quite out of the way. But what a quiet little refuge, I hope its still there.
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carterpaul | parent | next
This reads like an excerpt from Piranesi by Susanna Clark
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samtp | parent | next
There is not even an entry for a river, mountain, lake, etc? Do you live in the middle of the ocean or desert?
skinfaxi | parent | next
As first-hand accounts I don't think you could enter these on Wikipedia anyway.
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rhipitr | parent | next
Part of me would want to share these pleasant places with others. Part of me would not.
zahlman | parent | next
Indeed. The project in the OP is nonsensical to me, because it's impossible to get the desired result by filtering the real Wikipedia. The articles you'd actually want it to have would blatantly violate WP:N, WP:NPOV and especially WP:NOR.
ant6n | parent | next
I live in the middle of Berlin. This makes the wiki like a sight seeing book. I think the radius is way too big here.
gib444 | parent | next
Do you have a spare bedroom on Airbnb? Asking for a friend
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nomilk | parent | next
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)

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dspillett | parent | next
I think¹ it is more likely just a function of how we judge danger. Something local could be relevant to us now (if it were ongoing, or was likely to occur again, or affects/affected someone we care about), something far away might be relevant to us later. Nearby or approaching animal sounds? Definitely pay attention. More distant animal sounds? Maybe keep an ear on that. A tale of animal sounds in the next valley? Only take much note if it is part of an otherwise interesting/entertaining story.

--------

[1] caveat: I am in no way a biologist, sociologist, nor psychiatrist - this pondering may be complete bunkum

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esperent | parent | next
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...

dspillett | parent | next
> EDIT: actually this is just a wrapper around wikipedia's nearby feature I think.

It does at least add a useful feature: being able to state a location to search from. The Wikipedia page (unless there is one other than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby that is more flexible) will only work off your current location, which is completely turned off on my work machine. Also upon checking on my phone, even with “desktop site” forced, the map looks to be an additional feasure too.

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darkest_ruby | parent | next
Distances measured in yards for European destinations is an insult
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slymax | parent | next
Wikipedia has a nearby feature that works in other languages as well

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby

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everdrive | parent | next
This was much cooler than I expected. It doesn't seem to be accurate with regard to the "half hour walk" but it still paints a nice radius. I'm in a fairly rural area, so I didn't expect to find much of anything, but it's got local parks and trails as well as churches and landmarks. It's a short list; there's just not much around us, but this seems like a cool resource
noduerme | parent | next
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!
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waterproof | parent | next
I love this. Suggestion: make locations linkable eg. https://edjefferson.com/localwiki?lat=xx&lon=yy

Then post on location specific subreddits. Folks will eat this up.

trencedamp | parent | next
Really cool idea but not ideal for tourists. I just tried where I live and it mostly gave me a list of housing developments and roads. Nothing actually interesting, and there definitely are interesting things!
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pastel8739 | parent | next
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.

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karussell | parent | next
Great project. Also nice that they are using photon for their address search.

I might be pendantic here (for reasons you find in my profile), but this isnt a "half hour walk" and it is just a 3 km radius around the location, i.e. as the crow flies and rivers or walls are ignored. A real half hour walk would be an isochrone for a walking profile ;)

ek_erilaz | parent | next
This is so cool! Looking at my own city, most of the points of interest are public buildings; somehow the fact that its MY fire department building makes it relevant to me. Otherwise I'd probably never read an article about the history of a random fire department building. A few other commenters have mentioned that information feels more interesting when its physically close to you, I agree.

I had an idea a while back to gather audio recordings of people telling stories of their adventures in my area (Alaska) and placing them on a map, with the arbitrary restriction that you have to physically go to the place the story happened to unlock it. It works, and I think its pretty cool, but also found it takes a TON of time meeting with people, recording, cleaning up the audio... after about 100 stories I slowed down on the project. But if anyone here lives in Alaska, you can listen to these stories (mobile app only) for free at https://loremaps.io/app. Someday I hope to get back to it.

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TonyStr | parent | next
Super cool idea! Would love support for other languages, as English Wikipedia is quite limited where I live.
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vintagedave | parent | next
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.

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jamiescript | parent | next
Why is this not called Walkipedia?
phgn | parent | next
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!!

[1] https://openworldapp.xyz

kubb | parent | next
Is it possible to change the language of Wikipedia? For many places, the local language Wikipedia has more articles.
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possibleworlds | parent | next
Recently my friend paid attention to a statue of a man near his apartment he had passed for years. The story is behind this person is worthy of a movie, he’s like a character in a Pynchon novel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Houghton

https://youtu.be/0MWnSKDsURg

mvdwoord | parent | next
Vey nicely done! One issue though, not many local articles in english here. I see no obvious way to change language?
ChrisRR | parent | next
Mine is all of the local schools and then a cold war nuclear bunker that I didn't know about
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johnny_lol | parent | next
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!

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brianjlogan | parent | next
I just ran through the alternatives posted and my personal preference for UX is the OP's.

Speed to load, the specific use case I want which is just to load up near me and see a performant map I can browse.

The other links were either projects, games, or apps that did the same with older map projections that performed poorly for me.

firefax | parent | next
Wikivoyage is a useful alternative to those expensive Lonely Planet books, though they got a little manic about having each district of a city have it's own page in some smaller areas.
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{"deleted":true,"id":50213398,"parent":50202285,"time":1792780202,"type":"comment"}
eng_qs_anon | parent | next
This is great. One request-- please let me enlarge images in the articles.
danking00 | parent | next
If you like this you’d probably like Inquire which does a very similar thing but with a maps focused UI and designed for a phone.

https://tamper.io/inquire/

bhelkey | parent | next
A note, I found that many of the descriptions in "Did you know" include the place name. That is to say, I saw many many descriptions with the phrase "located in $CITY, $STATE, United States".

As all points are within a small radius, these description are very redundant.

demivoleegaston | parent | next
It's cool, but I think this should be extended beyond landmarks. It would be fun to have people that lived in the area or that are connected to that area for some reason
Elucalidavah | parent | next
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.
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anon_cow1111 | parent | next
A lot of popular websites like to throw snarky error pages at you which some people find annoying. But I actually DO want to see this site give you snarky pages if it finds zero normal articles within x distance.

From today's featured article:

Dirt

Nearest to you:

Missing sock

Wilson the volleyball

Gut microbiome

Depression

Ants

Overdue bill

Serial killer

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richardw | parent | next
Excellent. I discovered that the Sydney area Fairlight eventually led to the name of the synthesiser, which had a massive impact on music.

https://edjefferson.com/localwiki/?w=Fairlight%2C_New_South_...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkiYy0i8FtA

mxfh | parent | next
Like german speaking folks didn't invent the same thing 20 times over 20 years ago.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regiowiki

Filtering is all nice, but for a truly local wiki you should get different relevance criteria and different licensing criteria, to be able to negotiate citing local more recent sources.

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hbn | parent | next
This is a really cool idea but my entire city is mostly articles for regional districts and schools. I also found an article on the casino and the refinery on the edge of town.
jabroni_salad | parent | next
This is really neat. Apparently my dentist's office was initially built as an opera house.
lode | parent | next
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).

charles_f | parent | next
Of note, something similar exists in OSMAnd~. You can download wikipedia articles for areas you downloaded. It's very useful when you visit a place IMO
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netfortius | parent | next
English version only. Tried a few towns in Europe, and it's missing a lot of what the local language Wikipedia offers, so it's useful, in large part, probably for the anglophone world only.
profsummergig | parent | next
Simply fantastic. In my obscure little city, I've already discovered a bunch of historic places I had no idea about.
dllu | parent | next
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.

altilunium | parent | next
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.

rconti | parent | next
Pretty cool! Here in Menlo Park, they call out Kepler's Books, which most people would know about, but also the first Round Table Pizza which I think few people know about.
kristopolous | parent | next
https://localwiki.org/

Been around over 20 years

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kmarc | parent | next
Great idea. Similarly, the only reason I keep OsmAnd installed is that I can add a layer of "Wikipedia articles" -- a fun way to kill time when I'm backpacking and want to explore something outside the influence-o-sphere.

Now getting this info as easily navigable webpages is amazing.

hrldcpr | parent | next
Fun to follow subway station articles along my local line, until they stop becoming clickable links because they're too far away
slyall | parent | next
I found out that a closed church I walk past regularly was called "St Chad's"
keerthiko | parent | next
I see it's capped to 500 articles, because the first two zip codes i tried were the middle of manhattan and the middle of sf, and i was curious just how many wikipedia articles these two epicenters have.
mju | parent | next
I imagine it would be sooo cool... but for me, living in the proverbial middle of nowhere, far away from cities and tourist attractions, there isn't really that much to do or read, unfortunately.^^
paxy | parent | next
The concept is cool but in practice Wikipedia with just a bunch of buildings is not that interesting. Surely there are more than ~300 noteworthy articles for a dense NYC zip code.
JeanCampos | parent | next
Great idea! top10 "vibe code this in an afternoon"!
koito17 | parent | next
All I get are train stations unless I decide to input the city instead of the street... but then the areas are no longer 30-minute walks!

Interesting failure mode, but I like the concept overall.

ctrlaltdileep | parent | next
Very cool, I imagine this would be useful for someone having moved to somewhere new. I'm planning a potential move so will definitely be using this!
FfejL | parent | next
Fun to compare the part of Bay Area I live in now to the Cleveland suburb I grew up in. Huge difference in entries!
cm2012 | parent | next
To me this exposes the extreme limitations Wikipedia has given itself. My location could have 10 times as many Wikipedia articles nearby about things that are interesting, unique, or historically relevant. But those articles would all get denied.
floriferous | parent | next
This is so amazing. Thank you for building this. I hope you keep refining it and making it better for different use cases!
dd8601fn | parent | next
Don’t try zip codes. It gives you somewhere in Mexico.
sirnicolaz | parent | next
Thank you, i would like to give you a tip. this is the kind of work that makes the internet a better and more useful place
laybak | parent | next
I love how this redirects attention from familiar patterns in a wholesome direction
h1696UOuk | parent | next
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?
thuruv | parent | next
I always know wikipedia is an ocean. But having this popping up 100s of entries nearby is fun!
keithnz | parent | next
super interesting, https://edjefferson.com/localwiki/?w=Auckland_Film_Studios is so near me its not funny, and weirdly never seen a movie star in these parts even though some big budget films have been made there.
utopiah | parent | next
Neat, would also make for a nice Zim (offline Wikipedia and other websites) plugin/view.
flohofwoe | parent | next
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)

kaeluka | parent | next
This is very cool - one feature request: please support other languages! German Wikipedia would have way better info for my location :-)
jcmontx | parent | next
That's so cool, I've only got 3 articles nearby haha. I live in rural Argentina
ReDress | parent | next
Just when I moved over into a VPN, now the broader network / internet is looking more welcoming - heh
han2 | parent | next
This should be official feature in Wikipedia
Trigodil | parent | next
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).
refsab | parent | next
Very cool. Obvious in hindsight with every location having coordinates.

Found an abbey around my place in Western Bavaria I didn't know existed

SCdF | parent | next
This is very cool! Yes wikipedia does this already, but I love that it formats it into your own mini wikipedia.
random_cat_8745 | parent | next
This is amazing, I can better explore the region I live at. Thanks for the project!
nikharminds | parent | next
How is this different from the default wikipedia app? What value it is bringing?
zkmon | parent | next
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.
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KellyCriterion | parent | next
It works great, cool project!

I discovered something rightout near me that I wasnt aware of!:)

lukeplato | parent | next
incredible that ideas like this are still being invented
arshxyz | parent | next
This is amazing. How is the Did You Know section generated?
Harukadia | parent | next
Great software difinietly. How can we get much information such in local?
snickerer | parent | next
Content that is curated by interested humans, without commercial interests, is so good.
dzogchen | parent | next
Very cool idea. Would be even better if it had an option to use a local language.
demritocracy | parent | next
I absolutely love this, phenomenal work!
CPUHall | parent | next
Kinda cool, thanks for building this. Not much around me unfortunately, maybe allow expanding the range of distance?
thomasahle | parent | next
Fun! Would be nice if it supported articles in different languages.
thatwasunusual | parent | next
I love it. It would also be nice to be able to a) enter desired distance, and b) choose the metric system.
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rsynnott | parent | next
Some of the Did you know entries are unintentionally quite funny:

> ... that 7 Eccles Street was a row house in Dublin, Ireland?

I mean, as the name, and the fact that it is a _row house_ (though, also, it's weird that the article, and I checked, it's like that in the real Wikipedia too, calls it that; they're usually called terraced houses here), indicates that, well, there were a few of them. It's actually notable because it's where Leopold Bloom lives in Ulysses.

bcvvvy | parent | next
This is the World Wide Web I want to see. Amazing job. Thank you!
aizk | parent | next
Really missed calling it localpedia!
amelius | parent | next
Can I pick other planets?

(It could be fun to have an AI populate the db)

no1guangming | parent | next
Checked Hong Kong, not much on the page
jayknight | parent | next
See also https://wikimap.toolforge.org/, which puts wikipedia articles on a map so you can explore that way.

Edit: others have pointed out https://wiki-map.com/, which is way better.

internet_points | parent | next
neat idea :)

should probably use local language wikipedia? english is rather bare-bones for my area

ebx | parent | next
awesome idea! I learned about a lot of old buildings nearby
collabs | parent | next
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.

gambiting | parent | next
This is incredible. I already learned about several things literally within few miles from me that I had no idea existed. Thank you!
keyboards | parent | next
I love this so much
Perenti | parent | next
Missed by about 70km.
MajorTakeaway | parent | next
This took too long to make.
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rpigab | parent | next
Did you know ...

... 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.

INTPenis | parent | next
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.

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colordrops | parent | next
Cool but I can't find any way to share a link to a particular location.
tonymet | parent | next
I love these local articles. My Apple Watch Wikipedia app shows the local results and I use it to discreetly doomscroll when I’m bored in meetings.
0xbadcafebee | parent | next
This, but combined with TravelWiki, and Atlas Obscura, all offline, would be my new favorite travel app
eru | parent | next
Can we get SI units for distance?
singularity2001 | parent | next
that would be one white page for me.
ChrisGreenHeur | parent | next
I guess it works but I have no idea what a yard or a mile is.
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surfingdino | parent | next
What a brilliant idea! I love it.
xnickb | parent | next
So I thought this is brilliant and decided to find something close to me in Berlin. I was shown the "Nazi Germany" article.
dyauspitr | parent | next
Very nice! It really should have a field to enter the radius of the search.
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whycome | parent | next
How far away is communism from me?
ktimespi | parent | next
Coolest shit I've seen here in a while ngl
timonoko | parent | next
https://wiki-map.com/ considered much better.

Has local language too.

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krylonmae | parent | next
Nobody cares about Wikipedia anymore, it’s all in AI.
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shevy-java | parent | next
It's an interesting idea. Personally I prefer information to not be restricted, but for those who are, for instance, not very mobile, having Wikipedia as a focus nearby, kind of makes sense. I am not sure how useful Wikipedia is, as a lot of information may be missing locally or not be up to date, but given how utter crap Google search is these days, any move towards improvements (including local things) is good. The internet was being ruined by the big corporations ruining the web for many years - it is time to fight back.
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tomthe | parent | next
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.

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izecube | parent | next
none Americans complaining about using yards is hilarious tbh
geroge_kyaw | parent
Why not Grokipedia?

https://grokipedia.com

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