As we get closer to the next Wiki Loves Monuments competition in Iran, we wanted to take a moment to look back at the 2025 edition.

A year has passed since photographers across Iran once again took part in Wiki Loves Monuments Iran. The 2025 edition was organized by the Iranian Wikimedians User Group, with the help of volunteers and members of the Wikimedia community. The competition invited people to photograph Iran’s registered cultural and historical monuments and share their images freely on Wikimedia Commons.

We now have some distance from the competition and its results. This gives us a good chance to look at what happened, what we learned, and what we want to take with us into the next edition.

Wiki Loves Monuments Iran 2025

The Iranian competition ran from 1 to 31 October 2025.

During that month, participants contributed 2,513 eligible photographs. In comparison, the 2024 competition received 2,722 eligible photographs.

This was a small decrease, but the number of uploads tells only part of the story.

Iran has more than 33,000 registered monuments, spread across the country. Some are famous and already have many photographs. Others are much less known, and many still need better documentation on Wikimedia projects.

The goal of Wiki Loves Monuments is not simply to collect as many photographs as possible. We want to create a useful and freely available visual record of cultural heritage. A good photograph can illustrate a Wikipedia article, help people learn about a monument, or preserve a view of a place that may change in the future.

This was also an important lesson from our 2024 competition. Each edition helps us understand a little better how we can improve the contest and how we can encourage people to document more of Iran’s cultural heritage.

Selecting Iran’s finalists

After the competition ended, the national jury reviewed the photographs and selected the ten images that would represent Iran in the international round.

The first-place photograph showed Dayr-e Gachin Caravanserai, photographed by Hossein Pourakbarian.

Second place went to Mohammad Ataei for a photograph of the historic district of Gorgan, and third place went to Hadi Dehghanpour for a photograph of Arak Bazaar.

The ten selected photographs covered different parts of Iran’s heritage. They included caravanserais, historic urban areas, mosques, a bazaar, a castle, a monastery and other monuments.

These ten photographs then moved on to the international stage of Wiki Loves Monuments.

An exceptional international result

The 2025 international competition brought together photographs from 56 national contests. In total, almost 228,000 images were contributed by around 4,000 photographers around the world. Each national competition could send up to ten photographs to the international round.

The final result was especially memorable for Iran.

Four photographs from Iran were selected among the international winners, including both first and second place.

The Iranian winners were:

• 1st place: Dayr-e Gachin Caravanserai, by Hossein pourakbarian
• 2nd place: Mehmandust Tower, by Mehdi Akbari
• 5th place: Arak Bazaar, by Hadi Dehghanpour
• 22nd place: Seyyed Mosque in Isfahan, by Siavash Banaei

The full international results are available on Wikimedia Commons.

Seeing an Iranian photograph take first place was already something to celebrate. Having photographs from Iran in both first and second place made the result even more special.

The first-place photograph of Dayr-e Gachin Caravanserai had also won first place in the Iranian competition. It was chosen as the best image first by the national jury and later by the international jury.

But another result was just as interesting for us.

The photograph of Mehmandust Tower, which finished second internationally, had been ranked sixth in the Iranian competition.

This is a good example of why each country sends ten photographs to the international round instead of only its national winner. Different juries can see different strengths in a photograph. An image that places sixth in one jury may become one of the strongest photographs in the international competition.

The same happened, to a smaller degree, with other Iranian finalists. The photograph of Arak Bazaar was third nationally and fifth internationally. The photograph of Seyyed Mosque was fourth nationally and later finished 22nd in the international results.

For us, this showed the strength of the national top ten as a group, not only the strength of the first-place photograph.

More than the winning photographs

The international results were a great achievement for the photographers and for Wiki Loves Monuments Iran. But the winning images are only a small part of what the competition produced.

The 2,513 eligible photographs from the Iranian competition are now part of Wikimedia Commons.

They are freely licensed. They can be used on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. They can also be reused outside Wikimedia by anyone who follows the terms of their licenses.

Many of these photographs will never win an award, but that does not make them less useful.

A clear photograph of a little-known monument can be more valuable to Wikipedia than another beautiful photograph of a landmark that already has hundreds of images. A photograph can also document a building, detail, landscape or condition that may not look the same ten or twenty years from now.

This is one of the reasons Wiki Loves Monuments continues to matter.

What we learned from 2025

Looking back, one lesson is clear: the success of Wiki Loves Monuments cannot be measured only by the number of uploads.

Iran received fewer eligible photographs in 2025 than in 2024, with 2,513 compared with 2,722. At the same time, the photographs selected by the national jury had an exceptional result internationally.

This does not mean that the number of contributions is unimportant. We still want more people to take part, and we want to document more monuments. But we also want to help participants create photographs that are useful for Wikimedia projects.

The international results also reminded us of the importance of having a strong and varied national selection. The ten photographs sent to the international round should represent different photographers, places, styles and ways of looking at cultural heritage.

Another important goal is to encourage more photography of less-documented monuments.

With more than 33,000 registered monuments in Iran, there is still a great deal of work to do. Famous places naturally attract photographers, but Wiki Loves Monuments can have an even greater long-term impact when participants visit places that have few photographs or no useful images on Wikimedia Commons.

We also want to keep making the connection between photography and open knowledge clearer.

Uploading a photograph is an important first step. Correctly identifying the monument, adding useful information, using the right monument ID, and eventually adding the photograph to Wikipedia articles can make that contribution much more useful.

Looking toward the next edition

As the next Wiki Loves Monuments Iran approaches, we want to build on what we learned from both 2024 and 2025.

We want to reach new photographers while welcoming returning participants. We want to encourage people to explore monuments that receive less attention. We want more high-quality photographs, but also more photographs that fill real gaps in Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia.

Most of all, we want to continue building a free visual record of Iran’s cultural heritage.

The international success of the 2025 competition gave us something special to celebrate. Four Iranian photographs were among the international winners. Two of them took the first and second places in the world.

But the lasting result of the competition is much bigger than four photographs.

It is the thousands of freely licensed images that are now available to everyone.

The Iranian Wikimedians User Group would like to thank every photographer who participated, the members of the national jury, the volunteers who helped organize the competition, and the international Wiki Loves Monuments community.

As we prepare for the next edition, we hope even more people will join us in photographing, documenting and sharing Iran’s cultural heritage.

There are more than 33,000 monuments to document.

There is still a lot to photograph.

As the Iranian Wikimedians User Group (IWUG) started preparing its plans for the coming year and its next grant proposal, we wanted to hear directly from the community about what kinds of activities they were interested in and where we could do better.

In June 2026, we conducted a survey asking people around the user group about their current involvement with IWUG, their interest in future activities, and the kinds of programs and training they would find useful.

We received 147 responses. The results are now helping us shape our plans for the next year.

Who responded?

The survey ran from 8 to 23 June 2026. It was mainly intended for IWUG members and people connected with the user group community.

We shared it through the IWUG Telegram group and channel, as well as the Persian Wikipedia Village Pump (قهوه‌خانه). Anyone who had the link could respond.

Because participation was open and self-selected, the results should not be treated as representative of the entire Persian Wikipedia community. The survey was intended to help us understand the community around IWUG and what people in that community expect from the user group.

Almost all respondents were active on Wikipedia. 146 of the 147 respondents selected Wikipedia as one of the Wikimedia projects where they are most active. Some also reported contributing to Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, Wikisource and other Wikimedia projects.

Interest is high, but participation is much lower

One of the clearest results was the difference between people’s interest in IWUG activities and how much they currently participate.

85% of respondents reported at least a medium level of interest in participating in IWUG activities. Of those, 44.9% described their interest as high or very high.

Current participation was much lower.

65.3% said their current participation in IWUG was none, very low or low. Only 9.5% described their participation as high or very high.

The survey also showed that many respondents were not very familiar with IWUG. 70.1% said they had no, very little or low familiarity with the user group, while only 11.6% reported high or very high familiarity.

Taken together, these results suggest that there are people who are interested in getting involved but do not yet participate regularly, and in many cases may not know enough about IWUG or how to take part.

This is something we want to work on during the coming year.

Online education was the most popular activity

Education was one of the strongest themes in the responses.

When we asked which types of activities people would be interested in joining, online educational and skill-building programs were the most popular option, selected by 92 respondents (62.6%).

Article-writing campaigns and competitions were selected by 70 respondents (47.6%), while 62 respondents (42.2%) were interested in in-person social gatherings.

We also asked what people would like to learn through online programs.

97 respondents (66%) selected introductory training about Wikipedia and editing. 83 (56.5%) were interested in tools and scripts. 78 (53.1%) wanted to learn more about contributing to other Wikimedia projects such as Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource, and 67 respondents (45.6%) were interested in learning more about the wider Wikimedia movement.

Some of the written responses also mentioned that learning how Wikipedia works can be difficult, especially for newer contributors. Several respondents asked for clearer and more accessible educational material in Persian.

This fits closely with some of the programs we were already considering.

During the coming year, IWUG plans to create short educational videos in Persian and organize online workshops and webinars introducing users to different ways of contributing to Wikimedia projects. The survey results will help us decide which topics to prioritize.

What other activities are people interested in?

Respondents also showed considerable interest in collaborative campaigns and competitions.

The most popular option in this area was competitions organized together with other countries or Wikipedia communities, selected by 79 respondents (53.7%).

Among established Wikimedia campaigns, Wiki Loves Earth was selected by 74 respondents (50.3%), followed by Wiki Loves Folklore with 70 (47.6%). Wiki Loves Monuments was selected by 49 respondents, while Women in Red and Wikipedia Asian Month each received 38 selections.

For possible in-person programs, educational workshops were selected by 90 respondents (61.2%). Informal meetups were selected by 81 (55.1%), Wikipedia birthday celebrations by 79 (53.7%), and technical sessions focused on bug fixing and tool development by 63 (42.9%).

We also asked how people would like to hear about future IWUG activities. 114 respondents, or 77.6%, said they would like to receive information about programs by email.

These responses give us a useful picture of both the programs people are interested in and how we can do a better job of informing them about those opportunities.

Using the results in our planning

The main purpose of this survey was practical. We are currently preparing our annual plan and our next grant proposal, and we wanted community feedback to be part of that process.

Some of the results have confirmed ideas that were already under discussion, particularly our plans for educational videos, webinars and online workshops.

Other results, especially the difference between interest and current participation, showed us that we also need to pay more attention to outreach and communication. It is not enough to organize activities if interested contributors do not know about them or are unsure how to get involved.

We hope to use the coming year to make IWUG’s activities more visible and make it easier for interested contributors to participate.

A larger Persian Wikipedia survey is coming

This survey was focused on the community around IWUG. We are also planning a much larger survey aimed at the wider Persian Wikipedia community.

There is some history behind this. From 21 May to 20 June 2016, Iranian Wikimedians conducted a large survey of the Persian Wikipedia community that received 1,780 responses. It was promoted very widely, including outside the usual Wikimedia community channels. The results of that survey were never formally published.

Later in 2026, we plan to conduct another broad survey of the Persian Wikipedia community. Like the 2016 survey, it will be promoted well beyond IWUG’s own channels and will also use outreach outside Wikimedia spaces.

The purpose of that survey will be different from the June IWUG survey. We want to hear from a much wider range of Persian Wikipedia users and contributors and get a broader picture of the community.

After the new survey is completed and its results are published, we also plan to prepare a separate report comparing the findings with the 2016 survey.

For now, the June survey has already given us useful information for our immediate planning. It showed strong interest in educational activities, identified areas where contributors want more support, and highlighted a clear gap between people’s interest in IWUG and their current level of participation.

Those findings will be part of how we shape our programs for the coming year.