:Help:Categories
{{Short description|Collections of pages}}
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{{For|more information|Wikipedia:FAQ/Categories}}
{{For|information for editors on how to categorize a page|Help:Category|Wikipedia:Categorization}}
{{Information page|H:CATS}}
{{Reader help}}
Categories are used in Wikipedia to link articles under a common topic and are found at the bottom of the article page. Clicking the category name displays a list of articles in that category, below a list of sub-categories (categories in that category) (if any). 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.
File:Chicken Eyeglasses categories.png. At the very bottom of the page, below the References, navigation templates and external links are a series of links. These links are the categories used on the page, which include: :Category:Animal welfare, :Category:Animal equipment, :Category:Eyewear, and :Category:Poultry farming. By clicking on the category link at the bottom of the page, readers can navigate the Category tree (see below).]]
Category tree
All of the categories form a hierarchy, although sub-categories may be a member of more than one category. An example of a small part of this hierarchical structure looks somewhat like this:
| align = "center"
| :Category:Main topic classifications ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ :Category:History of Australia ↓ :Category:History of Australia by location ↓ :Category:History of Australia by state or territory ↓ New South Wales, Queensland, etc. |
The actual relationship is more complex since a category may appear as a subcategory of several other categories. The actual relationship of part of the category structure looks like this:
The uppermost category in the hierarchy is :Category:Contents. From here all other categories branch out, including those that are used for the maintenance of Wikipedia.
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.
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{{Wikipedia categorization navbox}}