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Southern Min Wikipedia facts for kids

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Southern Min Wikipedia
Wikipedia-logo-v2-zh-min-nan.svg
Type of site
Internet encyclopedia project
Available in Southern Min
Owner Wikimedia Foundation
Website zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org
Commercial No
Registration Optional
Launched July 2003 (project established)
May 28, 2004; 21 years ago (2004-05-28) (joined Wikipedia)
Content license
CC-BY-SA 3.0

The Southern Min Wikipedia is a special version of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. It's also called Holopedia. This Wikipedia is written in the Southern Min language, which is a type of Chinese.

It is the second biggest Wikipedia written in a variety of Chinese, right after the Mandarin Chinese Wikipedia. The articles are mainly written using a system called Pe̍h-ōe-jī. This system helps write down the sounds of the Hokkien Taiwanese dialect. As of 3 August 2025, this Wikipedia has Lua error in Module:NUMBEROF/data at line 5: attempt to index field 'data' (a nil value). articles.

How the Southern Min Wikipedia Started

The Southern Min Wikipedia began as its own project in 2003. It was first known as Holopedia. This name came from "Hō-ló-oē," which is a common way to refer to the Southern Min dialect.

Two Wikipedians, Pektiong (Tân Pe̍k-tiong) and Kaihsu (Tè Khái-sū), started this project. Later, they asked the Wikimedia Foundation to create an official Wikipedia for the Southern Min language.

Understanding Language Codes

When the Southern Min Wikipedia was first created, there wasn't a special ISO 639 code for the Southern Min language. ISO codes are like short names or labels for languages.

So, the people who started the Wikipedia decided to use "zh-min-nan." This code was already used for language tags on the internet. Now, there is an official ISO code for Southern Min, which is "nan." If you go to http://nan.wikipedia.org/, it will take you to http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/.

The Southern Min Wikipedia is the only Wikipedia that has two hyphens in its language code. Another Wikipedia, the Belarusian Wikipedia, used to have "be-x-old" as its code, but that's not used anymore.

In 2015, the people who work on the Southern Min Wikipedia agreed to officially use "nan" as the language code. However, as of as of 2021, this change has not been made yet.

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Wikipedia en chino min nan para niños

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Southern Min Wikipedia Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.