You can just use a URL like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=18630637 This is the shortest form, others are also possible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18630637 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation?curid=18630637 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18630637 Note that MediaWiki ignores the page title if you specify a curid, so even http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FooBar?curid=18630637 leads to the same page.
There’s a way to get the entire “introduction section” without any HTML parsing! Similar to AnthonyS’s answer with an additional explaintext parameter, you can get the introduction section text in plain text. Query Getting Stack Overflow’s introduction in plain text: Using the page title: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action=query&prop=extracts&exintro&explaintext&redirects=1&titles=Stack%20Overflow Or use pageids: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action=query&prop=extracts&exintro&explaintext&redirects=1&pageids=21721040 JSON Response (warnings stripped) { “query”: … Read more