Wikipedia:GLAM/GibraltarpediA/Press

About Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. It has an area of 6.8 km2 and a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region. At its foot is the densely populated city area, home to almost 30,000 Gibraltarians and other nationalities.

The official language of Gibraltar is English, and is used by the Government and in schools. Most locals are bilingual, also speaking Spanish, due to Gibraltar's proximity to Spain. However, because of the varied mix of ethnic groups which reside there, other languages are also spoken on the Rock. Berber and Arabic are spoken by the Moroccan community, as are Hindi and Sindhi by the Indian community of Gibraltar. Hebrew is also spoken by the Jewish community and the Maltese language is still spoken by some families of Maltese descent.

What is GibraltarpediA?


The project aims to cover every single notable place, person, artefact, plant and animal in Gibraltar in as many languages as possible. The area of interest includes the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Spanish municipalities along the coast of the Bay of Gibraltar, the northernmost coast of Morocco and Ceuta.

Why is it special?
GibraltarpediA is the first Wikipedia project to not only embrace a whole city, but also aspires to bridge two continents. This is a very large WikiProject; it's at least three times the size of MonmouthpediA.

Bringing a whole town to life on Wikipedia is something new and is a testament to the forward-thinking people of Monmouth, all of the volunteers and the Wikimedia UK team. I’m looking forward to seeing other towns and cities doing the same thing. - Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia.

GibraltarpediA uses QRpedia codes, a type of bar code a smartphone can read through its camera that takes you to a Wikipedia article in your language. QR codes are extremely useful, as physical signs have no way of displaying the same amount of information and in a potentially huge number of languages.

So far the project has produced:
 * over 450 new articles in 35 languages
 * over 2000 new images