German Wikipedia non-English Wikipedia subdomain, and was originally named . Its creation was announced by Jimmy Wales on 16 March 2001. One of the earliest snapshots of the home page, dated 21 March 2001 (revision #9), can be seen at the Wayback Machine site. Aside from the home page, creation of articles in the German Wikipedia started as early as April 2001, apparently with translations of Nupedia articles. The earliest article still available on Wikipedia's site is apparently , dated May 2001. Andrew Lih wrote that the hacker culture in Germany and the "verein" concept solidified the German Wikipedia's culture. The geography
Jimmy Wales 2001 by "The New York Times" and as founders in Wikipedia's first press release in January 2002. In August of that year, Wales identified himself as "co-founder" of Wikipedia. Sanger assembled on his personal webpage an assortment of links that appear to confirm the status of Sanger and Wales as co-founders. For example, Sanger and Wales are historically cited or described in early news citations and press releases as co-founders. Wales was quoted by "The Boston Globe" as calling Sanger's claim "preposterous" in February 2006, and called "the whole debate" "silly" in an April 2009 interview. In late 2005, Wales