lookup_wikipedia_url.py

def getWikipediaURL(entity, exact_match_only = False):
  # wikipedia search URL
  url = 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?{}'. \
        format(urllib.urlencode({'search': entity},'utf-8'))
  # send search request
  r = requests.head(url)
  if r.status_code == 200:
     if exact_match_only:
       # search term was not found; return nothing
       return None
     else:
       # search term was not found; return search URL
       return url
  elif r.status_code == 302:
     # search term was found; return redirect URL to wiki page
     return r.headers['Location']
  else:
     return None