A wideband circularly polarized (CP) dipole antenna with compact size and wide beamwidth is proposed. To achieve a wide half‐power beamwidth (HPBW), the dipole is designed to be a folded bowtie, and four rotationally symmetric vertical metal plates are placed on the square ground plane. A circular parasitic patch above the dipole arms improves the impedance bandwidth. By using a 3‐dB coupler, the proposed antenna achieves wideband CP performance. The measured results show that an impedance bandwidth for VSWR ≤ 2 and a 3‐dB axial‐ratio (AR) bandwidth are from 0.76 to 2.1 GHz (93.7%). Moreover, a bandwidth of HPBW ≥ 102° is from 0.76 to 1.8 GHz (81.2%).