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Commons:WikiProject Minimum One Category

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
This page contains changes which are not marked for translation.

The Wikiproject Minimum One Category will help to get all media at least one category. More than 560,000 uploaded images do not yet have categories.

Objectives

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  • To make it easier for authors and readers of Wikipedia articles to find the relevant media.
  • To create interwiki links using Wikidata.
  • To display files, when searching within a category, as can be done with the incategory: and deepcategory: search operators and the category searchbox.
  • To display files, when using the former to get a wall-of-images view for files about a given subject.
  • To make files be in- and excludable via deepcategory or the petscan tool.
  • To display files in usage statistics with tools like glamorous.
  • To help close and identifying media gaps by adding the files Commons does have to their topics.
  • To enable Web search engines to show more files from Commons, especially when users search in another language or the file-title is either undescriptive or otherwise problematic.
  • To help people landing on the Commons page of a file to find more similar or related files.
  • To make files easier to find.
  • To make categories less incomplete.

Main source

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Uncategorized images are collected in some big categories:

Tools

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GLAMorous

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Cat-a-lot

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Cat-a-lot steps:
1) Select files
2) Select destination category
3) Perform the operation

Search strategies

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Instead of categorising alphabetically from A to Z, the following search strategies might be more effective:

  • Search by keyword: Instead of working alphabetically from A to Z, it might be more effective, to search for a keyword, such as Sunset, Moon, Beach. For these files, it is often easy to find a category, often in combination with a geographical descriptions such as Category:Sunsets in Germany. You can also use the insource: search operator to search within the Information template, e.g. for files from a specific author/source.
  • Search on a map: This seems to work only, if the number of uncategorised files is not too large.
  • Search for files that are already being used on Wikipedia: Especially on the English Wikipedia you will find recommendations for the correct names of categories, if you want to create a new one. Please note that Wikipedia uses singular (en:WP:Tree), while Wikimedia Commons uses plural Category:Trees

From Structured data and File information to Categories

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Structured Data on Commons (SDC)
File information on Commons

Structured Data on Commons (SDC) and File Information on Commons are machine-friendly methods, to describe files even multilingually, but they have not developed far enough, to replace categories and will probably never do so. It is more likely that they will import the manual categorisation that is being conducted in this project.

Structured Data on Commons (short SDC) can be found in some images. These complement the categories.

You can help in two ways:

  1. Add SDC to images → Find images with no SDC and no category
  2. Use SDC to add categories → Find images with SDC and no category

For some SDC in images, we have provided the appropriate search link below:

Vehicles

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Objects

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Landscapes

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Buildings

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Persons

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Categorizing people just by gender, should only be used in exceptional cases, because more precise categories are available in most cases, for instance if the man plays a guitar.

Biology

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Some images had links to Wikipedia in the description. This help to find a category.

From searchwords to category

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Subject

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For many subjects, we have experts for the finer categorization at some WikiProjects / categories. Files should generally have at least one category about the content / topic of the file.

Cities

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Experienced Wikipedians first look at the captions and the {{Information}} box or {{Location dec}} right below it for coordinates. The uploader's edit history is also helpful. For Flickr sources, check also on Flickr itself – older Flickr imports often do not include all the information available there. The cross-wiki edit history is particularly helpful. It is also often indicated, whether an image was uploaded as part of a Wikipedia edit – a valuable source of information for classification.

Very powerful is also the search by the name of big cities. Often you get many images from this city. Try your own city!

Also in combination with "in CITYNAME" it gives very good search results. Often you can try the English name and also the local name.

Capitals

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All capitals of countries:

Abu Dhabi, Abuja, Accra, Addis Ababa, Aden, Algiers, Amman, Amsterdam, Andorra la Vella, Ankara, Antananarivo, Apia, Ashgabat, Asmara, Astana, Asunción, Athens, Baghdad, Baku, Bamako, Bandar Seri Begawan, Bangkok, Bangui, Banjul, Basseterre, Beijing, Beirut, Belgrade, Belmopan, Berlin, Bern, Bishkek, Bissau, Bloemfontein, Bogotá, Brasília, Bratislava, Brazzaville, Bridgetown, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Canberra, Cape Town, Caracas, Castries, Cetinje, Chișinău, Ciudad de la Paz, Colombo, Conakry, Copenhagen, Dakar, Damascus, Dhaka, Dili, Djibouti City, Dodoma, Doha, Dublin, Dushanbe, East Jerusalem, Freetown, Funafuti, Gaborone, Georgetown, Gitega, Guatemala City, Hanoi, Harare, Havana, Helsinki, Honiara, Islamabad, Jakarta, Jerusalem, Juba, Kabul, Kampala, Kathmandu, Khartoum, Kigali, Kingston, Kingstown, Kinshasa, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait City, Kyiv, La Paz, Libreville, Lilongwe, Lima, Lisbon, Ljubljana, Lobamba, Lomé, London, Luanda, Lusaka, Luxembourg, Madrid, Majuro, Malé, Managua, Manama, Manila, Maputo, Maseru, Mbabane, Mexico City, Minsk, Mogadishu, Monaco City, Monrovia, Montevideo, Moroni, Moscow, Muscat, N'Djamena, Nairobi, Nassau, Naypyidaw, New Delhi, Ngerulmud, Niamey, Nicosia, Nouakchott, Nukuʻalofa, Oslo, Ottawa, Ouagadougou, Palikir, Panama City, Paramaribo, Paris, Phnom Penh, Podgorica, Port Louis, Port Moresby, Port Vila, Port of Spain, Port-au-Prince, Porto-Novo, Prague, Praia, Pretoria, Pyongyang, Quito, Rabat, Ramallah, Reykjavík, Riga, Riyadh, Rome, Roseau, San José, San Marino, San Salvador, Sanaa, Santiago, Santo Domingo, Sarajevo, Seoul, Singapore, Skopje, Sofia, South Tarawa, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, St. George's, St. John's, Stockholm, Sucre, Suva, São Tomé, Taipei, Tallinn, Tarawa, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Tegucigalpa, Tehran, Thimphu, Tirana, Tokyo, Tripoli, Tunis, Ulaanbaatar, Vaduz, Valletta, Victoria, Vienna, Vientiane, Vilnius, Warsaw, Washington, D.C., Wellington, Windhoek, Yamoussoukro, Yaoundé, Yaren District, Yerevan, Zagreb

Big cities

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All cities with 1 million inhabitants:

Aba, Abidjan, Abu Dhabi, Abuja, Accra, Adana, Addis Ababa, Adelaide, Aden, Agra, Aleppo, Alexandria, Algiers, Almaty, Amman, Amritsar, Ankara, Antalya, Ashgabat, Auckland, Aurangabad, Balıkesir, Bamako, Bangkok, Barcelona, Barquisimeto, Beijing, Belgrade, Belo Horizonte, Benin City, Bern, Bhopal, Birmingham, Brasília, Brazzaville, Brisbane, Bursa, Busan, Calgary, Cali, Caracas, Casablanca, Chandigarh, Changchun, Chelyabinsk, Chengdu, Chittagong, Conakry, Cần Thơ, Da Nang, Damascus, Dar es Salaam, Denizli, Dhaka, Diyarbakır, Dubai, Edmonton, Faisalabad, Fez, Fortaleza, Garoua, Gaziantep, Ghaziabad, Giza, Goiânia, Guayaquil, Gujranwala, Gwalior, Haiphong, Harare, Harbin, Havana, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Huế, Hyderabad, Ibadan, Irbid, Jabalpur, Jodhpur, Johannesburg, Kabul, Kampala, Kano, Kanpur, Kaohsiung, Kayseri, Khartoum, Konya, Kota, Kuala Lumpur, Kumasi, Kuwait City, Lagos, Lahore, Lanzhou, León de Los Aldama, Lima, Lomé, London, Los Angeles, Luanda, Ludhiana, Lusaka, Madrid city, Madurai, Mandalay, Maputo, Maracaibo, Maracay, Marrakesh, Masvingo, Matola, Medellín, Meerut, Melbourne, Mersin, Mexico City, Milan, Mogadishu, Mombasa, Monrovia, Monterrey, Mosul, Multan, Mumbai, N'Djamena, Nagpur, Nanjing, Navi Mumbai, Naypyidaw, New Cairo, New Taipei, New York City, Niamey, Ningbo, Nouakchott, Omdurman, Patna, Perth, Peshawar, Phnom Penh, Pointe-Noire, Prayagraj, Pune, Pyongyang, Quetta, Quito, Raipur, Rajkot, Rawalpindi, Recife, Samsun, Sanaa, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Santiago de los Caballeros, Santo Domingo, Seoul, Sharjah, Shenzhen, Shobra Elkhema, Shymkent, Singapore, Soweto, Surat, Sydney, São Paulo, Taichung, Tainan, Taipei, Tangier, Taoyuan, Tbilisi, Thane, Thủ Đức, Tianjin, Tijuana, Tokyo, Toronto, Tripoli, Ulaanbaatar, Ulsan, Vadodara, Valencia, Van, Varanasi, Warsaw, Xining, Yangon, Yaoundé, Zapopan, Şanlıurfa

Countries

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Many images had the categories like Category:COUNTRYNAME photographs taken on 2026-02-10.

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Palestine, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, People's Republic of China, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of the Congo, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, South Sudan, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vatican City, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe,

There you can easy add categories. For example "Germany" like:

Language-specific words

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Some words indicate the origin of a image. For example the word "und" is a German word.

Language-specific letters

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Some letters in an alphabet indicate the origin of a image. For example the German letters ä, ü, ö and ß.

  • German:

Search letter "ä" - letter "ü" - letter "ö" - letter "ß"

Language specific categories

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In the right column of Category:All media needing categories as of 2021, you will find a "Contents" list with approx. 30 languages such as Greek, Cyrillic and Hebrew. You can put them for instance into Category:Uncategorized media with description in Greek language, Category:Files using the Russian language and Category:Files using the Hebrew language. Check Category:Uncategorized files by language of description and Category:Files by language used for other languages.

Approximately 200 language specific categories are listed in Category:Files by language used. You can search for instance for "аԥсшәа" and then temporarily list the files in Category:Files using the Abkhaz language (do not be be mis-led by false results during the search: some of the characters of these unusual languages look very similar to each other, and sometimes "English" has been selected even for foreign descriptions). Subsequently, a local expert can categorize them more accurately.

For a small number of files in countries that use difficult languages, it might be useful to add categories such as Category:Unidentified subjects in Armenia.

Language templates in the description

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Many files use a language template in the description. If you search for files that are described in the difficult-to-read Armenian language, you might either search for "Հայերեն" and then review the files carefully one-by-one, or - more effectively - for "hy" using the concept shown in the following table:

Language Search image Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
Arabic Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
Czech Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
Chinese Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
Dansk Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
English Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
French Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
German Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
Japanish Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
Korean Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
Portuguese Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
Russian Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF
Spanish Search images Search drawing Search audio Search video Search multimedia Search PDF

Flickr-Tags

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Many images where imported from Flickr and had the typical tags. Often this help to categorize the image.

Also you can search for individual tags like:

Type Tags
Countries

afghanistan, albania, algeria, andorra, angola, antigua and barbuda, argentina, armenia, australia, austria, azerbaijan, bahamas, bahrain, bangladesh, barbados, belarus, belgium, belize, benin, bhutan, bolivia, bosnia and herzegovina, botswana, brazil, brunei, bulgaria, burkina faso, burundi, cambodia, cameroon, canada, cape verde, central african republic, chad, chile, colombia, comoros, costa rica, croatia, cuba, cyprus, czech republic, czech republic, congo, denmark, djibouti, dominica, dominican republic, ecuador, egypt, el salvador, equatorial guinea, eritrea, estonia, eswatini, ethiopia, micronesia, fiji, finland, france, gabon, gambia, georgia, germany, ghana, greece, grenada, guatemala, guinea, guinea-bissau, guyana, haiti, honduras, hungary, iceland, india, indonesia, iran, iraq, ireland, israel, italy, ivory coast, jamaica, japan, jordan, kazakhstan, kenya, kiribati, kuwait, kyrgyzstan, laos, latvia, lebanon, lesotho, liberia, libya, liechtenstein, lithuania, luxembourg, madagascar, malawi, malaysia, maldives, mali, malta, marshall islands, mauritania, mauritius, mexico, moldova, monaco, mongolia, montenegro, morocco, mozambique, myanmar, namibia, nauru, nepal, netherlands, new zealand, nicaragua, niger, nigeria, north korea, north macedonia, norway, oman, pakistan, palau, palestine, panama, papua new guinea, paraguay, people's republic of china, peru, philippines, poland, portugal, qatar, republic of the congo, romania, russia, rwanda, saint kitts and nevis, saint lucia, saint vincent and the grenadines, samoa, san marino, saudi arabia, senegal, serbia, seychelles, sierra leone, singapore, slovakia, slovenia, solomon islands, somalia, south africa, south korea, south sudan, spain, sri lanka, sudan, suriname, sweden, switzerland, syria, são tomé and príncipe, taiwan, tajikistan, tanzania, thailand, timor-leste, togo, tonga, trinidad and tobago, tunisia, turkey, turkmenistan, tuvalu, uganda, ukraine, united arab emirates, united kingdom, united states, usa, uruguay, uzbekistan, vanuatu, vatican, vatican city, venezuela, vietnam, yemen, zambia, zimbabwe

Regions

bavaria, california, england, florida, ontario, wales

Cities

berlin, london, los angeles, new york city, paris, seattle, toronto

Vehicles

boat, bicycle, car, ship, train, tram, vehicles

Architecture

airport, architecture, bridge, castle, building, house street

Biology

animal, horse, dog insect, wildlife

Nature

summer, autumn, winter, cloud, flower, nature, river, smoke, sunset, plant, tree, water, waterfall

Attributes

black and white, bw, b&w, blackandwhite, colorful, geotagged, monotone, reflection

From location to category

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How to find the location, where a photograph has been taken?

  • Some photos have categories automatically added to their exif data. Then you can click onto your favourite link, such as Google Maps, to find the location of the object.
  • Often it helps, to check for similar photographs of the same uploader. Maybe, some of these have already been categorised. If not, you may add the categories to them, while you proceed.

World map

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Show world map by year:

Near coordinate

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For large cities, you can use a radius search within the city limits to find and categorize all georeferenced images.

A: Ahmedabad - Alexandria - Algiers - Amman - Ankara - Atlanta

B: Baghdad - Bandung - Bangkok - Barcelona - Beijing #1 - Beijing #2 - Belo Horizonte - Berlin#1 - Berlin#2 - Bangalore - Beijing - Bogotá - Boston - Buenos Aires - Busan

C: Chengdu - Chennai - Chicago - Chongqing - Colombo

D: Dalian - Dallas, Texas - Dar es Salaam - Delhi - Detroit - Dhaka - Dongguan - Dubai

F: Faisalabad - Foshan - Fukuoka

G: Guadalajara - Guangzhou - Guatemala City -

H: Hangzhou - Hanoi - Harbin - Ho Chi Minh City - Hong Kong - Houston - Hyderabad, India -

I: Ibadan - Istanbul

J: Jakarta - Jinan - Johannesburg -

L: Lagos - Lahore - Lima-Callao - London - Los Angeles #1 - Los Angeles #2 - Luanda -

K: Khartoum - Kairo #1 - Kairo #2 - Karachi - Kinshasa - Kolkata - Kuala Lumpur

M: Madrid - Manila - Medan - Mexico City - Miami, Florida - Milan - Moscow - Mumbai #1 - Mumbai #2 - Munich -

N: Nagoya - Nairobi - Nanjing - New York City #1 - New York City #2 - New York City #3 -

O: Osaka -

P: Paris - Philadelphia #1 - Philadelphia #2 - Prague - Pune

Q: Qingdao -

R: Rangun - Riyadh - Rio de Janeiro #1 - Rio de Janeiro #2 - Rome -

S: San Francisco - Saint Petersburg #1 - Saint Petersburg #2 - Santiago de Chile - São Paulo #1 - São Paulo #2 - Semarang - Seoul #1 - Seoul #2 - Seoul #3 - Shanghai - Shantou - Shenyang - Shenzhen #1 - Shenzhen #2 - Shenzhen #3 - Shenzhen #4 - Singapore #1 - Singapore #2 - Singapore #3 - Surabaya - Surat - Suzhou -

T: Taipei - Tehran - Tianjin - Tokyo - Toronto

V Visakhapatnam

W Washington, D.C. #1 - Washington, D.C. #2 - Wuhan

X Xi'an -

Z Zhuzhou -

From category to better category

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Many images with the Template:Uncategorized had already some categories. Mostly categories from a project (like Category:Images from Wiki Loves Folklore 2022 in Ghana) or from the template "Taken on" (like Category:India photographs taken on 2025-06-20). Please check this images and add more specific categories to this images.

From image to category

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Title "Snowy landscape" → with Reverse image search we got Limone Piemonte

Some time the uploader of an image did not write many helpful information. No good title, no name of the village, no structure data, no coordinate, no EXIF and no category. For example File:Snowy landscape.jpg had no other information. But then you can try en:Reverse image search from Google, Amazon or other companies. In this example it get the town en:Limone Piemonte in Italy. With this knowledge you find fast the category name at commons.

To identify the depicted place of pictures lacking details, the following steps might be helpful:

  • File description: Check the file's description ({{Information}} template) for any hints. Use translation services like Google Translate to grasp the meaning of foreign-language descriptions (in Firefox one can select text and then select 'Translate Selection to…' in the context menu);
  • File captions: check the captions if present. They may contain information missing in the {{Information}} template.
  • Coordinates: If the file description contains coordinates, check and verify if they are correct (using Google Mapsp, Bing Maps of other services).
  • User contributions: Check other contributions of the same uploader, on Commons as well as in other Wikis. Often, users upload pictures related to a wiki article they've edited or they've planned to publish (this includes orphaned files from deleted Wikipedia articles). To find other contributions:
    • check the File history that's part of the file description page. In the 'user' column, check the 'contribs' link. It will take you to the 'User contributions' page, listing all edits of the respective user.
    • On the uploader's 'User contributions' page, check the footer for the "Global contribs" link; this will yield cross-wiki edits.
    • If there are too much edits, check the "uploads" link to restrict the list to a table of uploaded files.
  • For buildings, cityscapes and so on, a reverse image search might be helpful. Often, such a search also allows to detect copyright violations.
    • Browser plugins like "Search by image" (Chrome/Firefox) allow to query multiple reverse image search engines with a single click.
    • Some reverse image search engines allow to restrict the search to a part of the image (by drawing or dragging borders around). If there's no match for the entire image, try to select parts of it.
    • Software like GIMP allow to manipulate the image (cropping / resizing / sharpening / modify exposure or contrast); the retouched version may yield better results for reverse image searches.
    • Double-check any reverse image search result before using the information to assign categories! Especially, AI-generated "identification" might be completely wrong!
  • Check the image for street signs, traffic signs, billboard advertisements, placards, car plates, telephone numbers or any other written content. Those details may allow to narrow down the country or even the city of a depicted place. Telephone area codes or country codes may be useful, too. Combine your findings in a web search.
  • For files imported from 500px or Flickr:
    • Check the source page. The pic may be part of a flickr album telling more about the place. Check the profiles of the original photographer.
    • Check for images by the same photographer from the same (or nearby) date. To do so, enter the photographer's name in quotation marks in the search box, followed by an "insource" regex search: insource:/2014-01-1/ restricts the search to pictures with a date between 2014-01-10 and 2014-10-19 in its description.
    • For Flickr imports: Check the photographer's Photostream since it may contain pics that don't appear on Commons (maybe due to restrictive licenses). The photostream presents the images in chronological order, so it may be possible to detect the "context" of a certain image.
  • If the file description contains something looking like a place name, check geonames.org or OpenStreetMap Nominatim for identification and further details.

Categorization

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No uncategorised categories

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Please keep in mind, to add at least on category to each new category that you create. Otherwise, it will appear in the Category:Uncategorized categories

Exisiting or new category

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The question, Should I use an existing category or use a new one? is difficult to answer. If you want to categorise the photo of a village in a remote part of the world, it might be sufficient to add the existing category of the district in which is is located, if it is unlikely that more than three photos of this village will be uploaded in the foreseeable future. If it is a photo of a person, of whom a Wikipedia article exists in any language, you may add a new category and should include the template {{Wikidata Infobox}}, to link it to Wikidata and generate automatically some categories.

Be specific, please

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To avoid cluttering high-level categories with lots of files, we recommend that you use the most specific subcategory, e.g. Category:Sunsets of Algeria, Category:Bodies of water at sunset or Category:Orange sunsets instead of the less-specific main category Category:Sunsets.

Automatisation

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While programming bots or automating the categorisation has limitations, uploaders should be automatically informed that at least one category should be added to each file. This could either be done in the Upload Wizard, or a message could be sent to the uploaders of uncategorized files. The discussion page of Commons:WMF support for Commons/Upload Wizard Improvements might be a good place to discuss this.

Low quality photos

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Special categories exist for blurry, rotated and inappropriately processed photos, such as Category:Blurred images, Category:Dutch angle and Category:Image processing gone wrong. The Commons:Graphic Lab/Photography workshop can stretch or rotate photos, to make them more useful for Wikipedia, such as those shown in the Category:Rotated photos and its subcategories.

As an alternative to requesting deletion, it might be useful, to split some very populated categories into two parts, by using or setting-up a subcategory such as Category:Cats (low quality) or Category:Sunsets (low quality), for instance for blurry photos, tilted photos or heavily watermarked photos. However, we do not have a systematic method to make such a judgement, and it may unnecessarily insult uploaders, who may not agree with that description of their work.

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If a file's licensing information seems to be incorrect or inaccurate, the following templates can be used:

  • If the file's licensing information seems to be incorrect or inaccurate, use {{wrong license}} and notify the uploader with {{subst:Wrong license note|1=File:###.jpg}}
  • If the file has insufficient source information, use {{subst:nsd}}.
  • If the file does not have a sufficient claim of permission, use {{subst:npd}}.
  • If the file is a blatant copyright infringement, use {{Copyvio}}.
  • If the file is potentially non-free per Commons:Licencing, start a Commons:Deletion request.

Out of scope

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Requests for deletions should be added to photos that are out of scope, such as low-quality holiday snaps showing an unidentified person at an unidentified place.

Cleanup while categorization

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Files without categories have a larger fraction of files that are copyright violations are of low quality without realistic usefulness. When categorizing files, nominate such for deletion via Tools → Nominate for deletion or via Tools → Report copyright violation. For identifying copyright violation, a browser addon to quickly reverse search the suspected image via Tineye can be useful. Note that overly low-quality files can clutter the categories you add them to especially for broad categories for major topics (like 'Buildings'), so instead of adding a broad category, consider a more specific one or an Unidentified xy category where quality of files – as well as subcategorization (e.g. by type of building) – is relatively unimportant. Ambiguous file names would also be good to rename right away per COM:File naming or adding them in bundles to Category:Files with bad file names which better enables later fixing and won't remove the file from the Uncategorized files category.

Missing description

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Many uploaded images do not have any description. If possible, add the missing description right away. This will make these images easier to find.

How to create a new category?

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In many cases, a new category needs to be created. If the photo is already being used in an Wikipedia article, you may follow the following steps:

  1. Check if a category already exists for the subject. To do so, search cat:search terms to search categories and/or check the categories of similar files (you can also use the search to find similar files) and/or check the subcategory branches of broader categories for whether the category already exists.
  2. Open the Wikipedia article and check, whether this is linked to a category on Wikimedia Commons (via the Tools menu).
  3. If not, use an English description, e.g. the English lemma of the article, in which it is used, or the name of the person or object. Enter this as a category to the file.
  4. If the category is red, open the category and enter {{Wikidata Infobox}}. You may use the box underneath the text field, to do so. Then create the category by pressing publish.
  5. Add an interwiki link to one of the pages, in which the photo is used in the left-hand column, to create the relevant Wikidata connections. You can do this by going to the Wikidata item of the Wikipedia article and then adding the Commons category to the multilingual links.
  6. If you categorized a person, some categories of the new category will be generated automatically. Otherwise, please add at least one category. Even when the infobox adds some categories, please check whether further categories are missing that you should set.

If the photo is not yet used on Wikipedia, it might be better to choose an existing category, such as the surname of a person, or the district of a location.

Project infos

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Forum for questions

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Feel free, to raise any questions at Commons:Village pump, which is a forum for novices and experienced Wikimedians.

Statistics

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Chart of files needing categories by year
• For past data, User:Multichill/Categorization stats was used
• For newer data, Wayback Machine archived versions of Category:Files needing categories by year were used
Date All media without category Percent
2026-02-07 134.019.947 619.611 0.4623 %
2026-02-14 134.500.105 607.333 0.4516 %
2026-02-21 135.120.843 601.859 0.4454 %
2026-03-01 135.638.577 591.037 0.4357 %
2026-03-07 135.975.443 572.086 0.4207 %

Project members

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See also

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