OpenMediaMap is an open, free, and crowdsourced project dedicated to digitizing and geo-locating old photographs, and preserving information about them. Submissions are allowed for photographs dated before January 1, 1930.
Anybody can contribute a photograph from any source available to them through a simple submission form. By adding coordinates to a record, the photograph is then made visible on the public map.
If exact coordinates are unknown, submissions will still remain visible in the public database, which can be attached with research notes. Other users can view these records and notes and can attempt to geo-locate them. (A post-submission editing system is currently in development)
This process is designed to be as frictionless as possible, allowing anybody to contribute, from hobbyist researchers, to family genealogists, to professional researchers. (A tagging system will be implemented to identify photographs owned by different people or organizations.)
Submissions become visible on the site after a brief review period (typically under 24 hours) to allow trusted users to prevent spam and maintain archival quality. (A permission-based review system is in development, with logged actions and contributor visibility.)
OpenMediaMap’s flagship campaign, The Pre-1900 Project, focuses primarily on the 19th century, with the goal of digitizing as many photographs from this period as possible.
By concentrating efforts on early photography, contributors can collectively build the first open, global catalog of 19th-century photographs — free from paywalls and institutional boundaries.
We operate under the following principles:
Remain Free: No paywalls. This archive is a crowdsourced, non-profit project inspired by initiatives such as Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap.
Remain Open: With strong backend infrastructure, security measures, and dedicated developers, the archive is built to remain accessible for generations.
Remain Reliable: A dedicated community helps maintain accuracy, discourage abuse through penalties, and enable edit rollbacks where necessary.
Begin contributing here.