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I am trying to retrieve data for a company programmatically using the Wikidata API. However, the data retrieved from Wikidata is different from en.wikipedia.org. Is this expected?

Example: Nissan Motors - WikiData and Wikipedia.

Revenue in wikidata: 94.62 billion USD (2007) Revenue in wikipedia: 11.38 trillion JPY (2014)

Edit: This particular data discrepancy has been fixed. However, the general question still remains. Is it possible for wikidata and wikipedia data to differ? If yes, how frequently are sync'd?

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  • The data you provided do not necessarily contradict each other, but they are different. It wouldn't surprise me if Wikipedia does not expose the entire knowledge base for free over an API.
    – Tim Biegeleisen
    Commented Nov 10, 2017 at 5:49
  • I agree it is not contradictory but is different. It was my impression that wikidata is the data which powers wikipedia. Is that an incorrect understanding?
    – varadark
    Commented Nov 10, 2017 at 6:01
  • An alternative way to retrieve the same data is using DBpedia.org. While it does not address this question, it can be used as a workaround in case the data in wikidata.org is not what you were looking for.
    – varadark
    Commented Nov 10, 2017 at 11:51
  • @varadark, please check Wikidata page again.
    – Stanislav Kralin
    Commented Nov 11, 2017 at 19:17
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    @StanislavKralin - this is weird. I could have sworn on the day I posted this question the data wasn't there.
    – varadark
    Commented Nov 12, 2017 at 4:02

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Wikipedia is an encyclopedic website that is written for humans.

Wikidata is a database designed to be used by both humans and programs, in a multilingual way. The content of this database is transfered from a lot of different Wikipedia language versions, and because each one as independent content, Wikidata is a mix of different Wikipedias articles.

So if a Wikipedia article is updated, wikidata will not be automatically edited. Perhaps a bot will do the job, but usually a contributor will have to update its data. It's why information may be different.

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  • Thanks for the answer. I just hope they have a faster way of keeping it up-to-date.
    – varadark
    Commented Nov 20, 2017 at 20:12

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