A young Chinese girl dressed in Christmas costume, hugs a pedestrian on a street to celebrate Christmas in Nanjing city, east China's Jiangsu province, 23 December 2015. (Photo by Imaginechina/Splash News)

Swimmers prepare to take part in the annual Christmas Day Peter Pan Cup handicap race in the Serpentine River, in Hyde Park, London, December 25, 2015. (Photo by Andrew Winning/Reuters)

A woman washes her dishes outside the temporary shelter built near the houses damaged during an earthquake earlier this year, in Bhaktapur, Nepal December 28, 2015. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

Valery Bystritskii, 10, gets a fellow student into a lock at Bunny's Gym in July 2015 in Winchester, Tennessee. (Photo by Mike Saliba/Barcroft USA)

Prospective flight attendants listen to their instructor during an etiquette training course at Indigo Airlines' Ifly training centre in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi November 18, 2014. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

Father Christmas arriving at the Arding and Hobbs store in Clapham Junction, London, 2nd November 1926. (Photo by H. F. Davis/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

Male is the capital and most populous city in the Republic of Maldives. The city is geographically located at the southern edge of North Malé Atoll (Kaafu Atoll). Administratively, it is a city-class constituency and is governed by the Malé City Council. Traditionally it was the King's Island, from where the ancient Maldive Royal dynasties ruled and where the palace was located. The city was then called “Mahal”. Formerly it was a walled city surrounded by fortifications and gates (doroshi).

Honorable Mention: “The Storm”. During I was taking photo with my nephew, the storm came and I caught this beautiful moment. Photo location: Kocaeli, Turkey. (Photo and caption by Aytül Akbaş/National Geographic Photo Contest)