Iron law of oligarchy

Iron law of oligarchy - Political theory claiming that all organizations will eventually become oligarchic. Article “Iron law of oligarchy” in English Wikipedia has 50.4 points for quality (as of July 1, 2025). The article contains 35 references and 16 sections. The article also contains templates indicating quality issues, therefore its score was reduced by 2.65 points.

This article has the best quality in Croatian Wikipedia. However, this article is the most popular in English version.

Since the creation of article “Iron law of oligarchy”, its content was written by 191 registered users of English Wikipedia and edited by 651 registered Wikipedia users in all languages.

The article is cited 53 times in English Wikipedia and cited 302 times in all languages.

The highest Authors Interest rank from 2001:

• Local (English): #28421 in October 2004
• Global: #35060 in June 2011

The highest popularity rank from 2008:

• Local (English): #20960 in July 2013
• Global: #39048 in July 2013

There are 27 language versions for this article in the WikiRank database (of the considered 55 Wikipedia language editions).

The quality and popularity assessment was based on Wikipédia dumps from July 1, 2025 (including revision history and pageviews for previous years).

The table below shows the language versions of the article with the highest quality.

#	Language	Quality grade	Quality score
1	Croatian (hr) Željezni zakon oligarhije		73.5463
2	German (de) Ehernes Gesetz der Oligarchie		70.1624
3	Chinese (zh) 寡頭鐵律		51.8656
4	English (en) Iron law of oligarchy		50.4364
5	Spanish (es) Ley de hierro de la oligarquía		38.7616
6	Japanese (ja) 寡頭制の鉄則		27.4235
7	Ukrainian (uk) Залізний закон олігархії		20.877
8	Basque (eu) Oligarkiaren burdinazko legea		20.4368
9	Esperanto (eo) Fera Regulo de Oligarkio		19.3038
10	Korean (ko) 과두제의 철칙		17.6633

More...

The following table shows the most popular language versions of the article.

The most popular language versions of the article "Iron law of oligarchy" in all the time

#	Language	Popularity award	Relative popularity
1	English (en) Iron law of oligarchy		1 460 454
2	Russian (ru) Железный закон олигархии		311 441
3	French (fr) Loi d'airain de l'oligarchie		210 340
4	German (de) Ehernes Gesetz der Oligarchie		199 165
5	Japanese (ja) 寡頭制の鉄則		109 037
6	Chinese (zh) 寡頭鐵律		88 197
7	Dutch (nl) IJzeren wet van de oligarchie		85 866
8	Italian (it) Legge ferrea dell'oligarchia		66 566
9	Spanish (es) Ley de hierro de la oligarquía		59 928
10	Swedish (sv) Oligarkins järnlag		46 620

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The following table shows the language versions of the article with the highest popularity in the last month.

The most popular language versions of the article "Iron law of oligarchy" in June 2025

#	Language	Popularity award	Relative popularity
1	English (en) Iron law of oligarchy		7 467
2	Portuguese (pt) Lei de ferro da oligarquia		1 693
3	Spanish (es) Ley de hierro de la oligarquía		1 148
4	Russian (ru) Железный закон олигархии		1 009
5	German (de) Ehernes Gesetz der Oligarchie		565
6	Chinese (zh) 寡頭鐵律		451
7	Japanese (ja) 寡頭制の鉄則		391
8	French (fr) Loi d'airain de l'oligarchie		369
9	Italian (it) Legge ferrea dell'oligarchia		211
10	Dutch (nl) IJzeren wet van de oligarchie		178

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The following table shows the language versions of the article with the highest Authors’ Interest.

Language versions of the article "Iron law of oligarchy" with the highest Authors Interest (number of authors). Only registered Wikipedia users were taken into account.

#	Language	AI award	Relative AI
1	English (en) Iron law of oligarchy		191
2	German (de) Ehernes Gesetz der Oligarchie		137
3	French (fr) Loi d'airain de l'oligarchie		41
4	Russian (ru) Железный закон олигархии		30
5	Hebrew (he) כלל הברזל של האוליגרכיה		29
6	Dutch (nl) IJzeren wet van de oligarchie		29
7	Italian (it) Legge ferrea dell'oligarchia		20
8	Swedish (sv) Oligarkins järnlag		20
9	Ukrainian (uk) Залізний закон олігархії		17
10	Japanese (ja) 寡頭制の鉄則		16

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The following table shows the language versions of the article with the highest Authors’ Interest in the last month.

Language versions of the article "Iron law of oligarchy" with the highest AI in June 2025

#	Language	AI award	Relative AI
1	German (de) Ehernes Gesetz der Oligarchie		1
2	Italian (it) Legge ferrea dell'oligarchia		1
3	Serbian (sr) Гвоздени закон олигархије		1
4	Arabic (ar) القانون الحديدي لحكم الأقلية		0
5	Bulgarian (bg) Железен закон на олигархията		0
6	Catalan (ca) Llei de ferro de l'oligarquia		0
7	Czech (cs) Železný zákon oligarchie		0
8	Danish (da) Oligarkiets jernlov		0
9	English (en) Iron law of oligarchy		0
10	Esperanto (eo) Fera Regulo de Oligarkio		0

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The following table shows the language versions of the article with the highest number of citations.

Language versions of the article "Iron law of oligarchy" with the highest Citation Index (CI)

#	Language	CI award	Relative CI
1	Portuguese (pt) Lei de ferro da oligarquia		56
2	English (en) Iron law of oligarchy		53
3	German (de) Ehernes Gesetz der Oligarchie		25
4	Persian (fa) قانون آهنین الیگارشی		19
5	Russian (ru) Железный закон олигархии		16
6	Japanese (ja) 寡頭制の鉄則		14
7	Korean (ko) 과두제의 철칙		11
8	Dutch (nl) IJzeren wet van de oligarchie		11
9	French (fr) Loi d'airain de l'oligarchie		10
10	Italian (it) Legge ferrea dell'oligarchia		10

More...

#	Language	Value
ar	Arabic القانون الحديدي لحكم الأقلية
bg	Bulgarian Железен закон на олигархията
ca	Catalan Llei de ferro de l'oligarquia
cs	Czech Železný zákon oligarchie
da	Danish Oligarkiets jernlov
de	German Ehernes Gesetz der Oligarchie
en	English Iron law of oligarchy
eo	Esperanto Fera Regulo de Oligarkio
es	Spanish Ley de hierro de la oligarquía
eu	Basque Oligarkiaren burdinazko legea
fa	Persian قانون آهنین الیگارشی
fr	French Loi d'airain de l'oligarchie
he	Hebrew כלל הברזל של האוליגרכיה
hr	Croatian Željezni zakon oligarhije
it	Italian Legge ferrea dell'oligarchia
ja	Japanese 寡頭制の鉄則
ko	Korean 과두제의 철칙
nl	Dutch IJzeren wet van de oligarchie
no	Norwegian Oligarkiets jernlov
pl	Polish Żelazne prawo oligarchii
pt	Portuguese Lei de ferro da oligarquia
ru	Russian Железный закон олигархии
sr	Serbian Гвоздени закон олигархије
sv	Swedish Oligarkins järnlag
tr	Turkish Oligarşinin Demir Kanunu
uk	Ukrainian Залізний закон олігархії
zh	Chinese 寡頭鐵律

Best Rank

English: #20960 07.2013

Global: #39048 07.2013

Best Rank

English: #28421 10.2004

Global: #35060 06.2011

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The WikiRank project is intended for automatic relative evaluation of the articles in the various language versions of Wikipedia. At the moment the service allows to compare over 44 million Wikipedia articles in 55 languages. Quality scores of articles are based on Wikipedia dumps from July, 2025. When calculating current popularity and AI of articles data from June 2025 was taken into account. For historical values of popularity and AI WikiRank used data from 2001 to 2025... More information