science

Geograph Britain and Ireland

Geograph Britain and Ireland is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Geograph Britain and Ireland rather than just read about it. In short: Geograph Britain and Ireland is a web-based project, begun in March 2005, to create a freely accessible archive of geographically located photographs of Great Britain and Ireland. Photographs in the Geograph collection are chosen to illustrate significant or typical features of each 1 km × 1 km (100 ha) grid square in the Ordnance Survey National Grid and the Irish national grid reference system.

Key takeaways

Geograph Britain and Ireland belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Geograph Britain and Ireland to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Geograph Britain and Ireland from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Geograph Britain and Ireland is a web-based project, begun in March 2005, to create a freely accessible archive of geographically located photographs of Great Britain and Ireland. Photographs in the Geograph collection are chosen to illustrate significant or typical features of each 1 km × 1 km (100 ha) grid square in the Ordnance Survey National Grid and the Irish national grid reference system. There are 332,099 such grid squares containing at least some land or permanent structure (at low tide), of which 282,000 have Geographs. Geographs are being collected for all parts of Great Britain, Isle of Man and Ireland. The Channel Islands fall outside Britain's grid system, but may be geographed using their local UTM grid. The project is sponsored by the Ordnance Survey, and extracts from the OS Landranger 1:50,000 scale maps illustrate the grid square pages. Geograph Project Limited is a charity registered in England and Wales, and the name Geograph is trademarked.

Contributions Photographs can be contributed by any registered user, although they must be approved by a panel of moderators before appearing on the website. The main aim of moderation is to make the site 'classroom ready' so that inappropriate images are rejected. All images are licensed by the contributors using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic which permits modification and redistribution of the images under certain conditions. Contributors should be aware that they are granting everyone an irrevocable licence to use their image(s); it is very difficult to get an image removed once it appears on the website. Default photo resolution is a 1024 pixels long edge, with a minimum of 640 pixels and options for higher resolutions to be made available. The entire archive of images with RDF metadata is available for download via BitTorrent. As an incentive to increase coverage, participants are awarded a point each time they contribute the first photograph classified as a geograph to a grid square. There is, however, no limit to the number of images per square, and some squares have over 1000 images. Some participants combine geographing with other outdoor location sports such as letterboxing, geocaching, trigpointing, benchmarking, and peak bagging.

Types of image

Geograph images are classified by site moderators as:

Geograph – an image which usefully illustrates or characterises the area in which it was taken; Accepted – an image which adds useful information about a square but which does not meet the requirements of a geograph; this includes close-ups, interiors, aerial shots, photos taken from outside the grid square, moveable objects that can't be shown on maps and silhouetted images; this category has subcategories 'Close Look', 'Inside', 'Aerial', 'Cross Grid' and 'Extra'; Rejected – an image that does not meet the requirements of the Geograph Project. There is a special classification of image that is known as a First Geograph – the first image uploaded of a particular grid square which meets the requirements to be a geograph. Contributors can also gain Second, Third and Fourth visitor points for each square, depending on how many other geographers have already submitted geographs to that square. The relevant date is when the photo was submitted, rather than taken. A contributor gains a TPoint (Time-gap Point) by submitting a photo that was taken over five years after the most recent image for that square. A contributor can also gain a TPoint by submitting an historic photo to a square that was taken at least five years distant from any other photograph in the square. The site also provides a count of the number of grid squares each contributor has photographed (Personal Points). Some of the common themes for geograph photos include:

Physical landscape Human land use Built environment Social interaction Geology Flora and fauna Local history

Statistics

As of March 2026, the project had over 8.2 million photographs from over 14,100 contributors, covering over 98% of Great Britain and over 48% of Ireland. There were an average of 29 images per grid square. Milestones include:

19 March 2025: The 8 millionth image submitted 29 November 2021: The 7 millionth image was submitted 17 January 2019: The 6 millionth image was submitted 5 July 2016: The 5 millionth image was submitted 9 June 2014: The 4 millionth image was submitted August 2012: 80% coverage of Great Britain & Ireland 29 June 2012: The 3 millionth image was submitted 14 August 2010: The 2 millionth image was submitted 15 October 2008: Millionth image 8 April 2008: 750,000 images 13 March 2008: Two-thirds coverage of Great Britain & Ireland 25 July 2007: 500,000 images 25 June 2007: 75% coverage of Great Britain 30 May 2007: 10% coverage of Ireland 5 March 2007: 50% coverage of Great Britain & Ireland 3 October 2006: 250,000 images 17 August 2006: 50% coverage of Great Britain 1 March 2006: 25% coverage of Great Britain & Ireland 21 December 2005: 25% coverage of Great Britain

Photograph of the Year competition

A weekly competition runs in the members-only forums to select the Photograph of the Year (POTY) from photographs taken that week. Each week one of a panel of volunteer selectors chooses around 50 of the week's best photos. Last week's winner then picks their favourite photo from the 50. After the end of the year the weekly winners are voted on to decide the best photo of each month and overall winner. The annual winners were:

2017 "Sheep on the Move" by Anne Burgess 2016 "November morning, Forest of Dean" by Jonathan Billinger 2015 "A537 Cat and Fiddle road from above Stake Farm" by Gary Rogers 2014 "North end of Mochrum Loch" by David Baird 2013 "Whiteout in Ninesprings" by Eugene Birchall 2012 "A slipway on Luing" by Walter Baxter 2011 "Morning Walk" by Mike Smith 2010 "The north ridge of Stob Ban" by Karl and Ali 2009 "Miners Hill" by Ian Slater 2008 "Deer Fence on the Shank of Drumfollow" by Gwen and James Anderson 2007 "Horsey Drainage Mill" by Rodney Burton 2006 "Islands of mud, East Hoyle Bank" by Peter Craine

Awards The Geograph site was awarded the Yahoo (UK & Ireland) Travel Find of the Year 2006. UK Wikimedian of the Year 2012 – Honourable Mention

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Geograph Britain and Ireland

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Geograph Britain and Ireland claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Geograph Britain and Ireland before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Geograph Britain and Ireland ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Geograph Britain and Ireland

In research: Geograph Britain and Ireland appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Geograph Britain and Ireland in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Geograph Britain and Ireland is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics British Isles, British digital libraries, Creative Commons-licensed websites, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Geograph Britain and Ireland outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Geograph Britain and Ireland in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Geograph Britain and Ireland means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Geograph Britain and Ireland out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Geograph Britain and Ireland in simple terms?

Why does Geograph Britain and Ireland matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Geograph Britain and Ireland?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Geograph Britain and Ireland.