Kofi Annan

About Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan (1938 - 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who reached the pinnacle of international service, notably serving as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. His tenure was marked by significant efforts to revitalize the UN bureaucracy and mediate global crises. Annan's leadership on issues like human rights, climate change, and the establishment of the Millennium Development Goals solidified his status as a major global figure, earning him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 (shared with the UN). This work secures his position at #933 in the Pantheon project's ranking of historical influence.

Despite this high historical importance, the modern internet grants him relatively measured attention. In 2025, his Wikipedia presence accrued approximately 475K annualized pageviews. This level of attention places him in a state of near equilibrium with his historical weighting, yielding an Attention Gap of roughly 1x. To put this into perspective, figures with demonstrably lower historical importance, such as Albert A. Michelson (#471), still draw interest that is a significant fraction of Annan's online presence, while Sima Qian (#603) also maintains a notable, though still lower, level of engagement.

Annan's digital attention shows slight long-term deceleration, with a -2.2% year-over-year view change in 2025, though the recent quarterly trend suggests a minor rebound of +1% between Q1 and Q3, indicating a flicker of renewed, albeit modest, contemporary interest.