Scrape data from Wikipedia to a Google sheet
Posted on: 09/28/2017
Do you ever have Wikipedia data you need in a spreadsheet?
Using Google Sheets you don't have to copy and paste. Instead, use the ImportHTML function in Google Sheets and get the data from Wikipedia.
Scraping data can save you tons of time. Copy and paste aren't always easy from a web page into a spreadsheet. Google sheets has a function that will pull a Wikipedia table into the worksheet.
The function is ImportHTML.
Here is a sample of the function below.
Here is the Wikipedia web page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_(United_Nations)
There are multiple tables on the webpage.
Some of the tables do not look like tables. 
Open Google Sheets and put in the function below.
You copy and paste the URL information from Google. Notice the URL and the word table have quotes around them. The number 2 means table number 2.
=ImportHtml("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_(United_Nations)", "table", 2)
Chris Menard
Chris Menard is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). Chris works as a Senior Trainer at BakerHostetler - one of the largest law firms in the US. Chris runs a YouTube channel featuring over 900 technology videos that cover various apps, including Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Zoom, Teams, Coilot, and Outlook. To date, the channel has had over 25 million views.
Menard also participates in 2 to 3 public speaking events annually, presenting at the Administrative Professional Conference (APC), the EA Ignite Conference, the University of Georgia, and CPA conferences. You can connect with him on LinkedIn at https://chrismenardtraining.com/linkedin or watch his videos on YouTube at https://chrismenardtraining.com/youtube.
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