Know Freely
Access Wikipedia from anywhere
Wikipedia is the world's largest free encyclopedia, and it's fully blocked in China for over 1.3 billion people. Lantern gives you unrestricted access.
How to unblock Wikipedia with a VPN
Step 1: Get Lantern
Download Lantern, on your phone or computer. It's free.
Step 2: Open and connect
Open Lantern and tap to connect. Lantern automatically picks the best protocol for your network, so there's nothing to configure.
Step 3: Enjoy Wikipedia
Go to wikipedia.org in any language. You're in.
Where is Wikipedia blocked?
Wikipedia isn't a social media platform or a messaging app. It's an encyclopedia. The fact that governments block it tells you something about how far some countries go to control information.
China is the most significant case. Chinese authorities blocked individual Wikipedia articles for years, targeting pages about Tiananmen Square, Taiwan, and other politically sensitive topics. In 2015, Wikipedia switched entirely to HTTPS, which made it impossible to block individual pages without blocking the whole site.1 China responded by blocking all of Wikipedia, in every language, in April 2019.2
The decision to block all language editions, not just Chinese, was deliberate. Chinese authorities were aware that translation tools could let users read content from any edition.2
Turkey blocked all of Wikipedia from April 2017 to January 2020, after demanding that Wikipedia remove content linking Turkey to terrorism. Wikipedia refused to comply. Turkey's Constitutional Court eventually ruled the block unconstitutional.3
Other countries that have blocked or censored Wikipedia include:
- Russia (has threatened full blocks multiple times; blocked individual articles over drug-related content; ongoing pressure to censor articles related to the Ukraine invasion)1
- Pakistan (briefly blocked in February 2023, lifted within days after the prime minister intervened)1
- Iran (intermittent blocks and selective censorship)
- Syria (blocked for extended periods during the civil war)
- Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela (selective article censorship)
Why blocking Wikipedia matters
When a government blocks Wikipedia, it's not just blocking one website. It's cutting off access to over 60 million articles in more than 300 languages, written and maintained by volunteers around the world. For students, researchers, and anyone trying to learn, losing Wikipedia means losing one of the most comprehensive reference sources that exists.
Wikipedia's 2015 switch to HTTPS was a turning point. Before that, governments could surgically block specific articles while leaving the rest of the site accessible. After the switch, it became all or nothing. China chose "nothing." Turkey did too, for nearly three years.
This is also why a VPN matters for Wikipedia access specifically. Because the block is site-wide, you can't work around it by finding a different URL or using a cached version. You need to route your connection through a country where Wikipedia isn't blocked.
Why Lantern works where other VPNs don't
Most VPNs rely on one or two protocols, usually WireGuard or OpenVPN. In China, where Wikipedia blocking is most impactful, these protocols are quickly detected and shut down by the Great Firewall.
Lantern runs more circumvention protocols than any other VPN, including Shadowsocks, VLESS, Hysteria 2, and WireGuard. When one gets blocked, Lantern automatically switches to another. No manual configuration, no troubleshooting.
Lantern also uses Smart Routing, which only routes blocked traffic through the VPN. Wikipedia loads fast without slowing down the rest of your connection.
Open knowledge deserves open access
Lantern is a nonprofit VPN, built by a 501(c)(3) and trusted by over 250 million people worldwide. Like Wikipedia, Lantern believes information should be accessible to everyone, not just people who happen to live in the right country.
It's open source, independently audited, and maintains a strict no-logs policy. Every Pro subscription helps fund free access for people in the most restricted regions.