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Image credits
Who took the photographs on this site, and which ones we cannot yet say
This site publishes 66 editorial photographs, and every one of them is shown on a page. Twenty-five others used to sit in this count without appearing anywhere; they were deleted on 5 August 2026 rather than left to carry attribution obligations no reader ever saw the benefit of. 43 of the remaining photographs have a photographer, a licence and a source page on record — those are listed below. The other 23 do not, and that is a gap in our own record-keeping rather than a design choice. 38 of the credited photographs are used under a licence that requires attribution, which is what this page is for; 5 are public domain or CC0, where naming the photographer is courtesy rather than obligation.
Recorded 2026-08-02
Photographs with a recorded source
Photographer and licence as the source page states them, with the page the photograph and its licence were read from.
| Photograph | Photographer | Licence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
/editorial/apps/merchant-qr-codes.jpg | Harald Groven | CC BY-SA 2.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/transport/metro-qr-gate.jpg | Painjet | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/transport/beijing-pass-vending-machine.jpg | N509FZ | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/entry/luohu-border-crossing.jpg | Abasaa | Public domain | Open source page |
/editorial/cities/shanghai-taxi.jpg | Jengtingchen | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/cities/beijing-taxi.jpg | 維基小霸王 | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/cities/guangzhou-taxi.jpg | User3204 | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/food/har-gow.jpg | N509FZ | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/food/xiaolongbao.jpg | Robigasp | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/food/kung-pao-chicken.jpg | Steven G. Johnson | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/food/dan-dan-noodles-shanghai.jpg | Steven G. Johnson | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/food/roujiamo.jpg | P. Xie | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/food/mapo-tofu.jpg | Archon6812 | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/core/shanghai-bund-night-skyline.jpg | Thiago Hirai from São Paulo, Brazil | CC BY 2.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/kaifeng-iron-pagoda.jpg | Gary Lee Todd, Ph.D., Professor of History, Sias International University, Xinzheng, Henan, China. | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/kashgar-id-kah.jpg | Elyasaf Freiman | Public domain | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/core/beijing-mutianyu-great-wall-real.jpg | xiquinhosilva | CC BY 2.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/destinations/xian-city-wall.jpg | xiquinhosilva | CC BY 2.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/destinations/yunnan-yulong-snow-mountain.jpg | Munford | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/chongqing-hongya-cave-night.jpg | Jonashtand | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/dali-erhai-lake.jpg | Brücke-Osteuropa | Public domain | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/guangzhou-canton-tower-night.jpg | Daniel Lu (User:dllu) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/harbin-ice-snow-world.jpg | Rincewind42 from China | CC BY 2.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/hohhot-dazhao-temple.jpg | Popolon | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/nanjing-qinhuai-river-confucius-temple.jpg | Lin Mei from Los Angeles, USA | CC BY 2.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/qingdao-zhanqiao-pier.jpg | K.Y.K.Z.K. | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/sanya-hainan-beach.jpg | Huangdan2060 | CC0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/shenzhen-futian-cbd-lianhuashan.jpg | Pathfinbird | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/suzhou-lingering-garden.jpg | Another Believer | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/zhangye-danxia.jpg | YubYub41 | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/zunyi-conference-site.jpg | 小小新手 | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/europe/marseille-biometric-border-control.jpg | Marseille Provence Airport 20190107 12.jpg: Okki; derivative work: Bonus bon | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/wuhan-airport-terminal.jpg | そらみみ | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/destinations/chengdu-panda-base.jpg | Alpha from Melbourne, Australia | CC BY-SA 2.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/destinations/guilin-li-river.jpg | chensiyuan | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/destinations/hangzhou-west-lake.jpg | Jakub Hałun | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/destinations/hong-kong-victoria-harbour.jpg | WiNG | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/core/shanghai-pudong-waterfront-day.jpg | Ermell | CC0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/kunming-stone-forest.jpg | CEphoto, Uwe Aranas | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/wuhan-yellow-crane-tower.jpg | Meraj Chhaya | CC BY 2.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/leshan-landmark.jpg | xiquinhosilva | CC BY 2.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/shaoxing-bazi-bridge.jpg | Zhangzhugang | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Open source page |
/editorial/sourced/cities/zhangjiajie-sandstone-spires.jpg | xiquinhosilva | CC BY 2.0 | Open source page |
Not published as credited
23 photographs whose source we cannot yet state
Publishing this number is the point. A site that asks you to trust its sourcing has to show you where its own record-keeping is weakest.
- 19 have no provenance record in this repository at all. They were added before image sourcing was gated, and we cannot name a photographer or a licence for them from anything we hold.
- 4 do have a record, but the record does not describe the photograph on the page — the stored author field holds a place description and the stored source points at an administrative location map rather than the photograph in use.
- 0were listed as credited on this very page until 3 August 2026, when we opened every source link we had recorded and found that theirs led nowhere — the file pages return 404. A credit whose source cannot be opened is worse than an admitted gap, because it reads as an obligation already met. They were moved here rather than left in the table above, and the count of unsourced images went up rather than down as a result.
- 0carry a photographer’s name inside the image file itself, in the metadata the camera and the editing software wrote. That is a lead, not a credit: an embedded name is not a licence, and repeating it here would not discharge an attribution requirement we cannot yet read. They are listed separately so that a name we already hold is not filed away as though we had nothing.
- Every file on this list that carries such a name, whichever of the reasons above applies to it:
- Each one ends the same two ways: a real credit on the list above, or a replaced image. The list is enforced as a ratchet in `tests/smoke/image-credits.test.ts` — it can shrink, and a new image cannot enter the site without arriving with its source.