Wiki Loves Monuments: what the world's biggest photo contest is (and how it helps hidden places)

Every September Wikimedia runs Wiki Loves Monuments, the photography contest that Guinness World Records has certified as the largest on the planet: in the debut edition, in 2011, more than 160,000 images came in. The mechanics are simple and free, open to anyone with a smartphone or a DSLR. Understanding what it is and how to take part also means discovering a detail that directly concerns anyone who loves little-photographed places: a huge share of Italian monuments still doesn't have even a single free photo on the internet.

How to take part

Let's start with the basics. Wiki Loves Monuments runs from 1 to 30 September. To take part you need an account on Wikimedia Commons (Wikipedia's free media library), then you upload your photos releasing them under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA licence: anyone can reuse them by crediting the author, including to illustrate the encyclopedia's entries. The best images are selected by a national jury, and the ten winners represent Italy in the international ranking, announced in December. The prize pool is symbolic (photography gear, backpacks), but the point of the contest is another: to liberate the heritage.

The Italian constraint

There's a peculiarity that is entirely Italian. Here, on top of copyright, there's the weight of the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape (the "Urbani Code", Legislative Decree 42/2004): publishing the photo of a cultural asset, including for commercial purposes, requires the authorisation of the body that has it in its care. For this reason, in Italy, only monuments included in special lists of "authorised monuments", released by the municipalities and the owning institutions, are photographed for the contest. Inclusion is free, and if a place you'd like to immortalise isn't yet on the list, you can make yourself the advocate for the request to the body. Since 2022, moreover, the contest has adopted a thematic approach: castles and fortifications in 2022, religious buildings in 2023, public buildings and places of memory in 2025.

And this is where the places we write about come in. In 2021 it was estimated that, of the more than 68,000 Italian monuments catalogued on Wikidata, only 23% had been authorised. Translated: three monuments out of four had no green light to end up in a photo consultable by all. The great crowd-pullers have thousands of shots; it's the minor sites that stay in the dark, precisely the ones that deserve to be documented.

The sites to photograph

Think of the archaeological sites. The Roman forum of Carsulae, crossed by the Via Flaminia, or the expanse of early-Christian mosaics at Aquileia are subjects that change completely with the raking light of morning. The Phoenician island of Mozia, in the middle of the Marsala lagoon, and the Greek temple of the Tavole Palatine at Metaponto, solitary in the Lucanian countryside, are exactly the kind of monument that appears on Commons with very few images. The same goes for the Vie Cave of Sovana, carved into the tuff by the Etruscans, for the Samnite sanctuary of Schiavi d'Abruzzo and for the Cistercian ruins of the Goleto Abbey in Irpinia.

On to castles and city walls, the 2022 theme. The ducal castle of Bisaccia, overlooking the upper Ofanto valley, the sixteenth-century walls of Glorenza in the Val Venosta and the walled village of Pereta in the hilly Maremma are generous photographic subjects: a gate, a tower, a rampart walkway are enough for a contest-worthy shot. And even a linguistic site like Bova, in Calabria, with its remains and its perched village, is precious documentation.

Wiki Loves Monuments exists in dozens of countries, each with its own rules and lists. If you travel abroad in September, you can contribute there too: at the star fort of Almeida in Portugal, at the citadel of Kamianets-Podilskyi suspended in the Ukrainian canyon, at the medieval walls of Maderuelo overlooking the lake in the Segovia province.

Before you set off

Three things to remember before you set off. First: the contest gives no access privileges, so respect bans on tripods or flash and pay the ticket where required. Second: in Italy, check that the monument is among those authorised for the current year, or get it activated to be added. Third: upload the photos by 30 September. The most concrete reward is not the prize, but seeing your image appear beside a place that, until then, was practically invisible on the internet.

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