KARACHI: The world's largest photography competition, 'Wiki Loves Monuments' will kick off in Pakistan on Sept 1, 2016.

Supported by the California-based non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, the annual competition aims to highlight and promote the world's cultural heritage sites.

The competition, which is open to all, seeks to encourage people to capture pictures of historically and culturally significant sites and to put them under a free licence as opposed to traditional copyright or all rights reserved.

The competition's organisers will be accepting submissions starting midnight on Sept 1-Sept 30. Later in October, the Pakistani jury will nominate the 10 best photos for the international contest, which has its own jury.

The first international winner will win a travel scholarship (with a maximum value of $2,500) to attend the international Wikipedia conference 'Wikimania' in Canada in August 2017. Four runners-up on the international level will win cash prizes of $1,000 each.

Wikimedia Pakistan, the Wikimedia Foundation affiliate in Pakistan is looking for "amazing and inspiring photographs of Pakistani cultural heritage sites."

"Pakistan has hundreds of historical and culturally significant monuments and sites which is at risk of being lost forever, but in most cases there are still no free licensed photos of them on the Internet.

"These important structures are often damaged or destroyed over time accidentally, deliberately or due to natural disasters, endangering the opportunity for people all over the world to access and learn about them," the foundation said.

Although some prominent heritage sites are protected and documented by various national and international organisations, a majority are not, it said.

Wikipedia offers a digital home to these monuments. The competition's purpose is to help preserve existing heritage and understand lost heritage by means of accurate and reliable information which is accessible to everyone for free.