Mao Zedong

About Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, who lived from 1893 to 1976, was a Chinese communist revolutionary and statesman who became the founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC). As the paramount leader from its establishment in 1949 until his death, his political and social engineering campaigns, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, profoundly reshaped modern Chinese society and politics. His historical importance is considerable, placing him at an HPI Rank of #167 out of approximately 15,000 influential figures studied by the Pantheon project.

In the modern digital landscape of 2025, Mao Zedong commanded 3.0 million Wikipedia pageviews. Relative to his historical importance (#167), this translates to an Attention Gap score of +6x, indicating significant overattention compared to many other figures of similar historical weight. For contrast, Abraham Lincoln, ranked slightly less important at #206, garnered 5.4 million views, suggesting a comparative deficit in digital focus for the Chinese leader among our chosen politicians.

This level of attention is not surging; in fact, his 2025 annualized views showed a slight decline of -0.7% year-over-year. Furthermore, his attention momentum between the first and third quarters of 2025 registered a negative change of -14%, suggesting a cooling of current internet engagement.