Help:Categories
 | This is an information page. It is not a Wikipedia policy or guideline; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect varying levels of consensus. |
Categories are used in Wikipedia to link articles under a common topic and are normally found at the bottom of the article page, consisting of parent categories (categories that include the same category as that article) and potentially an eponymous category (a category that covers exactly the same topic as that article). Clicking a category name displays a list of articles in that category, below a potential list of subcategories (categories that constitute a part of that category). Categories allow readers to navigate through Wikipedia and find related articles.
Categories are not displayed in the mobile version (phab:T24660). Mobile users can click "Desktop" at the bottom of a page to see the desktop version with categories. Registered users can enable Advanced mode which includes a "Categories" button.
Category tree organization
The uppermost parent category in the hierarchy is Category:Contents. From here all other categories branch out, including those that are used for the maintenance of Wikipedia.
All of the categories form a part of this hierarchy, although subcategories may appear to be a member of more than one category. An example of a small part of this hierarchical structure looks somewhat like this:
Furthermore, some subcategories may appear to belong to multiple subcategorized parent categories of a parent category.
The actual relationship is more complex since some subcategories may appear to have their parent category as the uppermost due to it merely not being subcategorized. The actual relationship of part of the category structure looks like this:
If an entry in a category is shown in italics it is a redirect to an article of a different name or a section of an article that contains information about that particular subject.
