Photograph from Serbia the most beautiful in the world

The photograph by Cedomir Zarkovic showing the limestone terraces of the Stopica Cave has been declared the world's most beautiful photograph of a protected natural area at the 2016 international photo contest organized by Wikimedia's Wiki Loves Earth. Serbia also placed 15th with the photograph of the Raca River Canyon by Vladimir Mijailovic.

The nine members of the international jury chose the most beautiful of the 270 winning photographs from 26 countries and and the UNESCO Biosphere Reserves project.

In a strong competition, the photograph by Cedomir Zarkovic has been chosen as the most beautiful image of a protected natural area, as it had encyclopedic value in addition to being attractive and dynamic. The winner will be awarded a trip to Montreal in order to attend Wikimedia's largest conference, Wikimania, to be held from August 9-13, 2017.

The president of Wikimedia Serbia, Filip Maljkovic, expressed great satisfaction over the victory and especially over the jury's assessment of the encyclopedic value of the photograph.

The Wiki Loves Earth project was initiated by Wikimedia Ukraine in 2013, but it quickly spread to other countries of the world where there are branches of the Wikimedia Foundation. The project aims to make as many free license photographs of natural monuments as possible and to contribute to increasing the public awareness of the preservation of nature.

The contest has been organized in Serbia since 2014, but this year saw the record being broken with nearly 2,000 photographs. The contest is being realized in cooperation with the Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia and the Tourism Organization of Serbia (TOS).

The official award ceremony will be held on Wednesday, November 30, at the premises of the TOS.

Turistička organizacija Srbije

Zavod za zaštitu prirode Srbije

Wikimedia

Filip Maljkovic

Wiki Loves Earth

Stopica Cave

Cedomir Zarkovic

Raca River Canyon

Vladimir Mijailovic

UNESCO Biosphere Reserves

Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia

Tourism Organization of Serbia

TOS