1564 - 1616
William Shakespeare (c. 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. Read more on Wikipedia
Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of William Shakespeare has received more than 48,158,241 page views. His biography is available in 212 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 202 in 2019). William Shakespeare is the 2nd most popular writer (down from 1st in 2019), the 3rd most popular biography from United Kingdom (down from 2nd in 2019) and the most popular British Writer.
William Shakespeare is most famous for writing the plays Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Page Views (PV)
Historical Popularity Index (HPI)
Languages Editions (L)
Effective Languages (L*)
Coefficient of Variation (CV)
Among writers, William Shakespeare ranks 2 out of 5,755. Before him are Homer. After him are Dante Alighieri, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Fyodor Dostoevsky, J. R. R. Tolkien, Hans Christian Andersen, Voltaire, Edgar Allan Poe, Sophocles, Leo Tolstoy, and Franz Kafka.
800 BC - 750 BC
HPI: 91.42
Rank: 1
1564 - 1616
HPI: 90.88
Rank: 2
1265 - 1321
HPI: 90.51
Rank: 3
1749 - 1832
HPI: 88.78
Rank: 4
1821 - 1881
HPI: 88.66
Rank: 5
1892 - 1973
HPI: 88.02
Rank: 6
1805 - 1875
HPI: 87.84
Rank: 7
1694 - 1778
HPI: 87.55
Rank: 8
1809 - 1849
HPI: 86.74
Rank: 9
497 BC - 406 BC
HPI: 86.65
Rank: 10
1828 - 1910
HPI: 86.31
Rank: 11
1883 - 1924
HPI: 86.23
Rank: 12
Among people born in 1564, William Shakespeare ranks 2. Before him is Galileo Galilei. After him are Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Christopher Marlowe, William Adams, Paulo Miki, David Fabricius, Ahmad Sirhindi, Francisco Pacheco, Hans Leo Hassler, Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and Joos de Momper. Among people deceased in 1616, William Shakespeare ranks 1. After him are Miguel de Cervantes, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Maria Anna of Bavaria, Vincenzo Scamozzi, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Jacob Le Maire, Simeon Bekbulatovich, John Adolf, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Andreas Libavius, Magdalene of Brandenburg, and Johannes Fabricius.
1564 - 1642
HPI: 94.55
Rank: 1
1564 - 1616
HPI: 90.88
Rank: 2
1564 - 1636
HPI: 69.91
Rank: 3
1564 - 1593
HPI: 67.38
Rank: 4
1564 - 1620
HPI: 64.94
Rank: 5
1564 - 1597
HPI: 63.16
Rank: 6
1564 - 1617
HPI: 59.90
Rank: 7
1564 - 1624
HPI: 59.20
Rank: 8
1564 - 1644
HPI: 57.93
Rank: 9
1564 - 1612
HPI: 57.16
Rank: 10
1564 - 1613
HPI: 55.84
Rank: 11
1564 - 1635
HPI: 55.24
Rank: 12
1564 - 1616
HPI: 90.88
Rank: 1
1547 - 1616
HPI: 84.65
Rank: 2
1542 - 1616
HPI: 75.13
Rank: 3
1574 - 1616
HPI: 63.28
Rank: 4
1548 - 1616
HPI: 62.50
Rank: 5
1539 - 1616
HPI: 61.11
Rank: 6
1585 - 1616
HPI: 59.81
Rank: 7
1600 - 1616
HPI: 59.21
Rank: 8
1575 - 1616
HPI: 57.36
Rank: 9
1555 - 1616
HPI: 57.17
Rank: 10
1582 - 1616
HPI: 54.61
Rank: 11
1587 - 1616
HPI: 53.72
Rank: 12
Among people born in United Kingdom, William Shakespeare ranks 3 out of 7,765. Before him are Isaac Newton (1643) and Adam Smith (1723). After him are Charles Darwin (1809), Elizabeth II (1926), John Locke (1632), Francis Bacon (1561), Elizabeth I of England (1533), Winston Churchill (1874), Charlie Chaplin (1889), Stephen Hawking (1942), and James Watt (1736).
1643 - 1726
HPI: 98.35
Rank: 1
1723 - 1790
HPI: 91.46
Rank: 2
1564 - 1616
HPI: 90.88
Rank: 3
1809 - 1882
HPI: 90.67
Rank: 4
1926 - 2022
HPI: 90.46
Rank: 5
1632 - 1704
HPI: 88.31
Rank: 6
1561 - 1626
HPI: 87.67
Rank: 7
1533 - 1603
HPI: 87.64
Rank: 8
1874 - 1965
HPI: 86.92
Rank: 9
1889 - 1977
HPI: 86.83
Rank: 10
1942 - 2018
HPI: 86.45
Rank: 11
1736 - 1819
HPI: 86.42
Rank: 12
Among writers born in United Kingdom, William Shakespeare ranks 1. After him are Agatha Christie (1890), Charles Dickens (1812), Lord Byron (1788), Jane Austen (1775), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859), Daniel Defoe (1660), Virginia Woolf (1882), Lewis Carroll (1832), Mary Shelley (1797), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850), and Walter Scott (1771).
1564 - 1616
HPI: 90.88
Rank: 1
1890 - 1976
HPI: 83.91
Rank: 2
1812 - 1870
HPI: 82.45
Rank: 3
1788 - 1824
HPI: 81.31
Rank: 4
1775 - 1817
HPI: 81.26
Rank: 5
1859 - 1930
HPI: 80.26
Rank: 6
1660 - 1731
HPI: 79.35
Rank: 7
1882 - 1941
HPI: 77.56
Rank: 8
1832 - 1898
HPI: 77.31
Rank: 9
1797 - 1851
HPI: 75.95
Rank: 10
1850 - 1894
HPI: 75.37
Rank: 11
1771 - 1832
HPI: 75.25
Rank: 12