WikiBanua 2.0: A Journey to Know the Culture and Nature of South Kalimantan through Wikimedia Project

Banjar Wikimedia Community, through the Dana Wiki program by Wikimedia Indonesia, has successfully carried out a project called WikiBanua 2.0 over a six-month period from December 2024 to May 2025 focused on documenting cultural heritage, local landmark, natural tourist attaraction, and public facilities in South Kalimantan, including places in the Meratus Geopark area. This project was a continuation of WikiBanua 1.0 in October 2023 to March 2024 focused on documenting rivers in Banjarmasin, Banjarese culinary, and tombs of Banjarese public figure. In WikiBanua 2.0, it was carried out by five community member: Ilham Mufti Laksono (User:Ilham Mufti Laksono), Arief Rahman (User:Ezagren), Mico Andriamin (User:Gladius Oceanus), Muhammad Syahrul (User:Sibiru45), and Radhian Nur Rahman (User:Radramboo)

What has been implemented?

The documentation activities offcially carried out on December 22, 2024, where we traveled to Central Hulu Sungai Regency, South Hulu Sungai Regency, and Tapin Regency. In these regions, we documented varios historical buildings, monuments, cemeteries, woship places, and others. This was done until December 25, 2024. Then, documentation activities was continued on on January 22, 2025 to January 28, 2025, where we documented monuments, parks, tombs and cemeteries, worship places, schools, and others in Tanah Bumbu Regency and Kotabaru Regency. After that, the documentation was continued by each member until April 2025.

In addition to documentation on Wikimedia Commons, we also added information about the objects we documented to the Wikidata, Indonesian Wikipedia, and Banjarese Wikipedia. This effort aims to enrich the information about cultural and natural wealth in South Kalimantan which is still very limited in the Wikimedia projects.

What has been achieved?

Through this project, we have successfully documented 200s objects consisting of historical and cultural sites, regional landmarks, natural tourist attractions, public facilities, and others. All of these objects are represented in a total of 460 photos in Wikimedia Commons (this number does not include team photos), which exceeds our target of 120 objects in 240 photos. In addition to that, we have successfully added and developed 388 Wikidata items, 68 articles in Indonesian Wikipedia, and 63 articles in Banjarese Wikipedia related to the photos. This number also exceeds our target of only approximately 50 Wikidata items, 50 articles on Indonesian Wikipedia, and 50 articles on Banjar Wikipedia.

Tim WikiBanua 2.0, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Lessons learned

This project has taught us many valuable lessons. We realize that there are still many potential cultural and natural riches in South Kalimantan, such as cultural heritage, regional landmarks, natural tourism, and others, that have not been documented through Wikimedia projects. This is what became our idea to carry out this project, so that many people can find out information related to this topic. We also hope that this project idea will inspire many people to contribute to the development of this topic in Wikimedia projects.

We also learned that the enthusiasm and dedication of the project organizers and the support of the community were key to the success of this project. In the midst of the busyness of each committee, we have worked hard so that this project can be implemented well so that we can achieve results that exceed the target even with limited funds. We also greatly appreciate the advice and assistance from the members of the Banjar Wikimedia Community in making this project a success so that the committee gains new insights related to this project.

Next steps

We see great potential in continuing this project. We hope that knowledge related to the natural and cultural riches of South Kalimantan will continue to grow across Wikimedia projects, especially Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Indonesian Wikipedia, and Banjar Wikipedia. We believe that the content related to this supports and enriches information for many people, including educators, students, researchers, and the general public.

Regarding the continuation of this project, the Banjar Wikimedia Community has planned to continue it through a program through the Rapid Fund program that we submitted at the end of April 2025, namely WikiBanua 3.0. The plan is, we will implement this project from July 2025 to January 2026 and will reach neighboring provinces, such as Central Kalimantan and East Kalimantan. Through this project, we also intend to involve more volunteers in Banjarmasin and other areas to collaborate and contribute to the goal of freeing knowledge. We are confident that this effort will result in more content being produced related to the cultural and natural wealth of Indonesia, especially on the island of Kalimantan.