Wikipedia Category Members Scraper

Wikipedia Category Members Scraper

Scrape every page title inside any Wikipedia category, up to a million members per run. Each row returns the page ID, namespace, and full title. No API key, no login. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Wikipedia's category system groups millions of articles, but browsing page by page is slow and the official API paginates 500 members at a time. This actor walks the entire category tree for you, resolving continuation tokens automatically, so you get a clean list of every member page in one dataset. Feed it a category name like 'American_rock_singers' or 'Physics' and it returns the complete membership roster.

Who uses it	What they scrape Wikipedia for
SEO analysts	Building topic clusters from Wikipedia category hierarchies.
Data scientists	Creating knowledge graph nodes from structured Wikipedia category memberships.
Content strategists	Auditing which pages Wikipedia groups under a subject to find content gaps.
Academic researchers	Compiling bibliographic or entity lists from curated Wikipedia categories.

What it does

This Actor collects all page titles and IDs that belong to a given Wikipedia category and returns each member as a flat row.

• 📋 Flat member list: every subpage, file, and subcategory title the category contains, delivered as one row per member.
• 🔄 Automatic pagination: the actor follows the API continuation token until the category is exhausted or your max items limit is reached.
• 🌐 Namespace awareness: each row includes the namespace ID so you can separate articles from talk pages, templates, or category pages.
• ⚡ Zero auth: uses the public MediaWiki Action API with no app registration, OAuth, or proxy required.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Wikipedia data

📚 Build a topic index.

A content strategist scrapes 'Category:Artificial_intelligence' to get every article Wikipedia groups under AI, then maps them to their own content plan.

🧠 Populate a knowledge graph.

A data engineer extracts all members of 'Category:Quantum_mechanics' to seed a graph database with verified entity names and Wikipedia page IDs.

🔍 Audit category coverage.

An SEO analyst pulls the member list of 'Category:American_rock_singers' and cross-references it with their site's artist pages to find missing profiles.

📊 Compile research corpora.

An academic scrapes 'Category:World_Heritage_Sites_by_country' to assemble a clean list of pages for textual analysis.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Complete membership	Every page, subcategory, and file listed in the category, not the first 500.
Structured output	Fixed schema with pageid, namespace, and title so every run is predictable.
No rate-limit headaches	The actor handles continuation and polite request timing for you.
Free tier ready	Preview up to 10 members on the free plan; paid users can pull up to 1,000,000.

How it compares

This actor focuses exclusively on Wikipedia category membership lists, while the competitors below either bundle category lookup inside broader article-fetching tools or use Wikipedia as one of many company research sources.

Feature	ParseForge	Wikipedia Articles Scraper	Wikipedia Article Scraper
Dedicated category member list output	Yes, returns only the member roster	Not listed	Not listed
Automatic pagination through full category	Yes, follows continuation tokens	Not listed	Not listed
Namespace field to separate articles from subcategories	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
No API key or login required	Yes	Yes	Yes
Full article text or HTML	No, member list only	Yes	Yes
Multi-language Wikipedia support	English only	Not listed	Yes, 250+ editions

What a Wikipedia record looks like

Every record returns as one flat JSON row. Here is a real one from a run:

{
 "pageid": 25496169,
 "ns": 0,
 "title": "Chad Ackerman",
 "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Ackerman",
 "scrapedAt": "2026-09-06T16:05:56.595Z"
}

Every value above comes from a real run. A field a record does not have comes back as null.

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a single Wikipedia category name and an optional item limit. The category name is the part after 'Category:' in the URL, with spaces replaced by underscores. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "categoryName": "American_rock_singers",
 "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
 "categoryName": "American_rock_singers",
 "maxItems": 200
}

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Wikipedia Category Members Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Wikipedia through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/wikipedia-category-members-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

I get an error saying 'Invalid category name'.

Make sure you are not including the 'Category:' prefix. Only provide the part after it, like 'Physics' or 'American_rock_singers'. Also check for typos and ensure spaces are replaced with underscores.

The run completes but returns zero items.

The category name may be correct but the category itself might be empty or contain only subcategories that are themselves empty. Visit the category page on Wikipedia to confirm it lists members.

My dataset contains pages I did not expect.

Categories often include subcategories, talk pages, and file pages. Use the 'ns' (namespace) field to filter: ns=0 gives only articles, ns=14 gives only subcategories.

The actor stops before reaching my maxItems limit.

The category likely has fewer members than your limit. The actor stops automatically when the API signals there are no more members to fetch.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What is a Wikipedia category name?	It is the part of the URL after 'Category:'. For example, the category at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Physics has the name 'Physics'. Replace spaces with underscores, so 'American rock singers' becomes 'American_rock_singers'.
Does this actor get subcategories too?	Yes. The MediaWiki API returns subcategories as members of the parent category. They appear in your dataset with their namespace ID so you can filter them out if you only want articles.
How many members can I scrape in one run?	Free users can preview up to 10 members. Paid users can set maxItems up to 1,000,000. The actor stops when it hits your limit or the category is exhausted.
Do I need a Wikipedia API key or login?	No. This actor uses the public, unauthenticated MediaWiki Action API. No app registration, OAuth, or proxy is needed.
What output formats are supported?	Your dataset can be exported to CSV, JSON, Excel, XML, or RSS from the Apify platform.
Can I scrape categories from non-English Wikipedias?	This actor targets the English Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org. To scrape other language editions, you would need a modified actor pointing to that language's API endpoint.
What is a namespace ID?	Wikipedia organizes pages into namespaces: 0 for articles, 1 for talk pages, 14 for categories, 6 for files, and so on. The namespace field lets you separate article titles from other page types.
Why am I getting fewer results than expected?	Check that your category name is spelled correctly and uses underscores for spaces. Also, some categories contain only subcategories, not articles. Try browsing the category page on Wikipedia to verify its contents.
Does the actor follow 'see also' or related category links?	No. It only returns the direct members of the single category you provide. It does not traverse the category graph laterally or upward.
Can I get the full page text or summary?	This actor returns only the member list (page ID, namespace, title). For full article content, use a Wikipedia article scraper like Wikipedia Articles Scraper.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.