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What is Wiki Loves Monuments?

Wiki Loves Monuments is a photographic competition that invites members of the public to submit photographs of monuments throughout the month of September. All photographs are uploaded through the Wiki Loves Monuments portal on Wikimedia Commons which you can access on this site during September. All photographs are donated to the creative commons with a standard CC BY-SA 3.0 copyright so everyone in the world can use and enjoy the photographs freely. This is why many of the photographs are often used on Wikipedia.

Pictures can be taken at any time of the year in any year. The only requirement is that they are photographs of monuments in South Africa. A list of grade I and grade II photographs can be found on this page but any building with heritage status will be accepted. Places that are not already heritage sites but which are regarded as historically important sites may also be submitted.

September is also Heritage month in South Africa. Wiki Loves Monuments ZA, the South African component of Wiki Loves Monuments International, celebrates this by inviting members of the public to submit photographs of monuments from across South Africa and upload them to the Creative Commons.

You can see the photos that were submitted last year uploaded here and a last year's winning photographs here. It is easy to take part: go to a heritage site near you, take the photo, and upload!

Uploading is simple and can be done either by using the mobile/tablet app (for android, download here) or by plugging your camera into your computer and using our upload wizard. Remember that you have to register first, and all entries are released under the CC-BY-SA licence. For more information on this licence, click here.

This competition is now officially the biggest photo competition in the world according to the World Guinness Records for the second year in a row!!

Submitting an Unregistered Heritage Site
If there is a notable heritage site that you think is worthy of national recognition, please take a photograph of the existing site and motivate for consideration by the National Heritage Council and the South African Heritage Resource Agency. Please send this photograph and motivation to this [mailto:theresa.hume@wikimedia.org.za email address]. This is your chance to keep Heritage alive!

Introduction to Wiki Loves Monuments
Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) is an international public competition where you can photograph symbols of our cultural heritage (buildings, statues, shipwrecks, etc.) and share the photos with the world by uploading them to Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons is a database of freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute and which anyone can use.

Wiki Loves Monuments is organised separately in every participating country by the local Wikimedia community. The top photographs from South Africa will receive national and provincial prizes. The best photographs from participating countries will be entered into an international contest. One lucky photograph will win a prize that is still to be determined by the international organisers. Last year the winner went to Hong Kong.

Wiki Loves Monuments began as a pilot project in the Netherlands in September 2010. Over 12,500 photos were entered by more than 250 participants. Due to this huge success, the project was rolled out to 18 European countries in 2011. More than 165,000 pictures of European monuments were entered for the 2011 competition. Last year over 365,000 photographs were submitted globally with 6,432 of them coming from South Africa.

'Connect with your Heritage. Get your camera, phone or tablet, visit a heritage site and start clicking! Read more on Commons...'