History and Statistics

Wiki Loves Earth is an annual international photo contest of natural monuments, where participants picture protected areas and upload their photos to Wikimedia Commons.

The goal of the project is, on one hand, to picture under a free license as many natural monuments and protected areas as possible, on the other hand, to contribute to nature protection by raising public awareness. These pictures are to be used to illustrate articles on Wikipedia and other Wikiprojects (Wikivoyage, Wikinews, Wikiquote, etc.).

Wiki Loves Earth international statistics

 

Year	Countries	Uploads	Images used in the wikis	Uploaders	Uploaders registered after the competition started
2013	1	9695	9446 (97%)	346	275 (79%)
2014	14	62541	19470 (31%)	2889	2370 (82%)
2015	25	104201	26216 (25%)	8837	7745 (87%)
2016	24	109936	21966 (19%)	13187	11749 (89%)
2017	36	130482	25791 (19%)	15074	13728 (91%)
2018	32	89683	17590 (19%)	7645	6359 (83%)
2019	37	94699	17146 (18%)	9699	8407 (86%)
2020	34	106020	25131 (23%)	9095	7636 (83%)
2021	35	62491	8062 (13%)	4337	3353 (77%)
2022	39	23889	1502 (6%)	1236	818 (66%)

History of Wiki Loves Earth

Source. Detailed statistics and graphs for each country are also available there.

After years of successful organization of the Wiki Loves Monuments contest, there was an idea of a similar contest for natural monuments.

The idea of Wiki Loves Earth was born in April 2012 during a discussion between representatives of Wikimedia Ukraine and Wikimedia RU.

 The idea was realized for the first time in Ukraine, where the contest was held from 15 April to 15 May 2013. There were 11,736 picture entries at the competition, uploaded from 15 April to 15 May 2013. 1104 natural monuments of Ukraine (out of listed 7384) were photographed and 365 people took part in the contest. The number of newly illustrated articles about natural heritage sites was 172. The contest was ranked as the 2nd coolest project of Wikimedia Chapters at Wikimania 2013.

The contest became international in 2014 with 16 countries participating from four different continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.

During the contest over 70,000 pictures were submitted by more than 3,000 participants. Similarly to Wiki Loves Monuments, the contest was organized through numerous national contests, coordinated by local volunteers. The national juries submitted then up to 10 pictures to the international stage of the contest. With 16 participating countries, the international jury had to consider a total of 156 picture candidates.

In 2015, the Wikimedia community with the help of its Ukrainian and Polish Chapters and volunteers held the third edition of the contest. Over 100,000 pictures were submitted by the participants. With 26 participating countries, the international jury had to consider a total of 259 candidate pictures.

In 2016, Wiki Loves Earth made one more step towards expanding geography. Apart from traditional country-based contests in 26 countries, a new nomination was added in collaboration with UNESCO: participants were invited to upload photos of UNESCO biosphere reserves in 120 different countries. Most countries organized the contest from 1 May to 31 May 2016, while some countries and UNESCO special nomination extended the contest period till 30 June. During the contest over 115,000 pictures were submitted by more than 13,600 participants.

In 2017, Wiki Loves Earth expanded its geography more than ever. A record number of 36 countries organized a national stage, including some first-time participants like Bangladesh, Canada, Indonesia, and Norway. In 2016, there was a special nomination in collaboration with UNESCO on UNESCO biosphere reserves in 120 countries. Most countries organized the contest from 1 May to 31 May 2017, while some countries and UNESCO special nomination extended the contest period till 30 June. During the contest a record number of 131,984 pictures were submitted by 15,299 participants, nearly 14,000 of whom made their first upload. Winners page

In 2018, the contest was held for the sixth time. The number of photos uploaded by participants from 32 countries across the world reached almost 90 thousand, and the contest helped attract more than 6 thousand new users. Participants were invited to upload photos in a separate category for UNESCO biosphere reserves and UNESCO Global Geoparks across the globe. See winners of the 2018 contest.

2019 became a year when the number of participating countries was the largest in the history of the contest. 37 countries took part, uploading almost 95 thousand photos and attracting more than 6 thousand new users. Most of the uploaded photos are simply breathtaking — just look.