Carl Linnaeus

About Carl Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus, the 18th-century Swedish botanist and physician, is a towering figure in biology, fundamentally shaping how we understand and categorize life on Earth. He is best known for establishing the modern system of binomial nomenclature, assigning every living organism a two-part Latin name (genus and species), a system detailed in his seminal work, *Systema Naturae*. This foundational contribution to taxonomy is why the Pantheon project ranks him at #104 in overall historical importance among thousands of influential figures.

Despite this high historical standing, Linnaeus's modern digital footprint appears modest in comparison to his influence. He registers approximately 692K annualized Wikipedia views in 2025, an attention level we calculate to be about $1\mathrm{x}$ of what his historical rank would predict, suggesting a relatively stable, though not surging, level of online interest. For comparison, his viewership is significantly eclipsed by figures from the same era with lower historical impact, such as Queen Victoria (#309 importance) who garners 5.7M views.

While not suffering a major attention decay, his year-over-year view count declined by 4.8%. However, short-term interest shows a positive trend, with his 2025 momentum (Q1 vs Q3) increasing by 16%, hinting that contemporary educational or popular science focus may be on the rise.