# Category system

By [Superme1314](https://paragraph.com/@superme1314) · 2021-10-28

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Wikipedia's [collection of category pages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization) is a classified index system. It is automatically generated from category tags at the bottoms of articles and most other pages. Nearly all of the articles available so far on the website can be found through these subject indexes.

If you are simply looking to browse articles by topic, there are three top-level pages to choose from:

*   [Category:Main topic classifications](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Main_topic_classifications) – probably what you are looking for: Arts, History, Technology, etc.
    
*   [Wikipedia:Contents/Categories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contents/Categories) – a hand-crafted list of first- and second-level topic categories
    

For biographies, see [Category:People](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People).

[Category:Contents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Contents) is technically at the top of the category hierarchy, but contains many categories useful to editors but not readers. [Special:Categories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Categories) lists every category alphabetically.

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*Originally published on [Superme1314](https://paragraph.com/@superme1314/category-system)*