Cultural Heritage 2025: Photo competition
Clockmaker Erik Magnus Mørk at work in the clock tower of Uranienborg Church in Oslo, Norway. Photo: Morten Lauveng, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Join the annual push to document our cultural heritage! Throughout September, you can upload photos from Norway and Sápmi, and the photos can then be used on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Contribute to free knowledge and compete for great prizes, in the Norwegian competition as well as in the international finals.
Cultural heritage is a wide topic field, and images make a big difference to how well we can document and communicate it. Heritage sites are distinct visual elements, while living heritage can be less tangible. Cultural heritage is also singing, storytelling, crafts know-how, traditions and much more.
Steinvikholm Castle. Photo: Sulthan66. Wool embroidery on a bunad from West Telemark. Photo: VALive. Tyssedal hydroelectric power station. Photo: Jorulf Kyrkjeeide.
Take part
You can submit photos taken at any point in time, but you have to upload them to Wikimedia Commons during September 2025. Please register a user account in order to upload images. The photos must have been taken by you, and you have to share them under a free license. The upload wizard will guide you through this.
You can enter images taken in Norway and Sápmi in two categories, and you can submit as many as you want.
1. Monuments
This category covers registered cultural heritage sites and cultural environments that have been given cultural heritage ID numbers (“kulturminne-ID”). Find photo opportunities at your location with the help of the map at Kulturminnesøk. Make a note of the cultural heritage ID – you will need it when you upload images to the competition.
- Buildings
- Industrial plants and infrastructure
- Vehicles and vessels
- Archeological heritage sites
- Heritage sites for social practices, rituals and festive events
- Cultural environments
- Other monuments or sites
Up to ten photos in category 1 will qualify for the international Wiki Loves Monuments finale.
2. Living heritage
Living heritage is traditional knowledge that is passed on between people. The knowledge is actively put to use and is transmitted through creative ways of expression.
- Traditional craftmanship
- Performing arts
- Knowledge concerning nature and the universe
- Social practices, rituals and festive events
- Oral traditions and expressions
- Traditional foods
Ten winning photos will be announced in each category, and the top three of each category will receive a prize. There will be a special prize for a motif from Trøndelag county. The county has well-known monuments such as the Nidaros Cathedral and Kjeungskjær Lighthouse, but many other buildings and aspects of living heritage have not been documented well enough. Irrespective of county, there will also be a Facebook vote to select a winner of the people’s choice award. The winning photos will be announced in the first half of December.
What determines a good image?
In this photo competition, three evaluation criteria have been defined:
- Technical quality
- Originality
- Potential usefulness on Wikipedia and in knowledge sharing elsewhere, meaning how well the photo illustrates the depicted cultural heritage.
Share your knowledge
Cultural Heritage 2025 is a joint effort to improve how cultural heritage is illustrated on Wikipedia, but the photos can also be used elsewhere. Wikimedia Norge is the organiser, and the competition is also part of Wiki Loves Monuments.
There are many of us that strive to improve how cultural heritage in Norway and Sápmi is documented, not least within our partner The Norwegian Federation of Cultural Heritage Organisations. Their members transmit tacit knowledge and skills and preserve heritage. But how is this communicated to the world? We hope to receive a wide range of submissions to our photo competition! Everyone is welcome to take part and to upload photos of what cultural heritage is to them. Volunteers are ready to make use of the images on Wikipedia, and all of September they will be improving pages in Norwegian Bokmål, Nynorsk, Northern Sámi and Inari Sámi.
Last year’s competition
Ever since the annual competition was started, 13,000 photos of monuments and 200 of living heritage have been submitted from Norway and Sápmi. The international competition has received 3.5 million photos of monuments from 102 countries.
Take a look at the wonderful winning images of Cultural Heritage 2024:
Photo: Gilad Topaz.
Photo: Siv Bente Ulvestad.
Photo: Marianne Sunde Hestetun.
As many as three photos from Norway made it to the top ten in the international finals, all taken by photographer Gilad Topaz during a trip to Lofoten.
This September, you can share your photos in an exciting competition with great prizes. Join our push to document cultural heritage!
Unless otherwise stated, all photos are shared under the following license: CC BY-SA 4.0.
