Coordinate Me 2026

Help put Australian places on the map

15 May 2026, Ali Smith.

Every time someone opens a map to find a local landmark, looks up a heritage-listed building, or searches for a national park on Wikipedia, there's a good chance Wikidata is quietly doing some of the heavy lifting behind the scenes!

What's the competition?

Coordinate Me 2026 ran from 1–31 May 2026, with the goal of improving Wikidata items - anything from caves, wetlands, and watercourses to hospitals and tourist attractions - by adding or correcting their coordinate location (known in Wikidata as property P625). Australia was one of the focus countries, which meant that contributions counted directly toward the main leaderboard.

The competition was open to everyone, from all over the world. You didn't need to be based in Australia to contribute to the Australian dashboard, or to any other country's dashboard.

What we achieved in 2026

141 editors
15 items created
8.24K items edited
21.4K total edits
8.51K references added

📋 The full picture on the Dashboard

New to Wikidata? That's fine.

If you've never edited Wikidata before, this is a genuinely good moment to start. The barrier to entry is lower than you might expect as adding a coordinate location is one of the simpler edits you can make: find the item, look up the coordinates on a map, and add them. Check out the help resources and tools listed if you need some guidance.

Drop in and Wikidata

📅 There were also online workshops running throughout May in multiple languages. Or attend one of Wikimedia Australia's regular online Drop in and Wikidata sessions!

Drop in and Wikidata - August 2026 — Thursday 27 August 2026
Join our monthly Wikidata drop in!
Drop in and Wikidata - July 2026 — Thursday 30 July 2026
Join our monthly Wikidata drop in!
Drop in and Wikidata - June 2026 — Thursday 25 June 2026
Join our monthly Wikidata drop in!

Where to start for Australian content

If you're looking for a concrete entry point, there are some ready-made live Wikidata queries listed that return Australian items missing key information. You can run them directly on Wikidata Query Service (WDQS) and get a current list of items that need work. You might also like to utilise Mix'n'Match's Australian databases to match existing records with Wikidata entries — a powerful way to batch-link identifiers and fill in gaps systematically.

If you attended WikiCon Australia in Canberra earlier this year and sat in on the mapping and geocoordinates sessions with Alex Lum, this competition is a natural next step. You already have the skills — now there's a structured way to put them to use, with a community of international editors doing the same work at the same time.