Two men carrie a basket of flowers purchased from the flower market as a woman makes a selfie on the eve of an International Women's Day, in Moscow, Russia, on Friday, March 7, 2025. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

A volunteer in the Kurdish Community Protection Forces guards wheat fields from fire or looting around the town of Tarbesbeyeh, also known as al-Qahtaniyah in Arabic, in northeastern Syria's Hasakeh Governorate near the Turkish border on May 30, 2024. (Photo by Delil Souleiman/AFP Photo)

Dancers pose for a photo as they prepare during Festival Cilung or “Love the Environment” Festival, where boats made from recycled materials, mostly plastic bottles, sail on the Ciliwung River, one of the most polluted rivers in the world, to raise public awareness about river pollution, in Jakarta, Indonesia, on September 28, 2025. (Photo by Willy Kurniawan/Reuters)

This handout picture taken by Pleiades satellite and released on September 27, 2013 shows a small island of mud and rock created by the huge earthquake that hit southwest Pakistan has fascinated locals but experts – who found methane gas rising from it – say it is unlikely to last long. The 7.7-magnitude quake struck on September 25 in Baluchistan's remote Awaran district, killing at least 271 people and affecting hundreds of thousands. The island is about 60 to 70 feet (18 to 21 metres) high, up to 300 feet wide and up to 120 feet long and sits about 650 feet from the coast. (Photo by AFP Photo/CNES/Distribution Astrium Services)

The Longsheng Rice Terraces are located in Longsheng County, about 100 km (2 hours drive) from Guilin, Guangxi, China. The most popular are Ping An Rice Terrace and Jinkeng Rice Terrace. The terraced fields are built along the slope winding from the riverside up to the mountain top, the highest part being 880 m in elevation while the lowest part is 380 m[citation needed]. The coiling line that starts from the mountain foot up to the mountain top divides the mountain into layers of water glittering in the sun in spring, layers of green rice shoots in summer, layers of golden rice in fall, and layers of silvery frost in winter. The terraced fields were mostly built during the Ming Dynasty, about 500 years ago.

National Geographic invites photographers from around the world to enter the 2013 National Geographic Photography Contest. The grand-prize winner will receive $10,000 (USD) and a trip to National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., to participate in the annual National Geographic Photography Seminar in January 2014. Photo: “We just want to move to search to the Leopard at that morning but we found a group of giraffes come toward a small lake and start drinking it was a nice moment when the Giraffe finish from drinking and leave a letters “S” with motion in the air”. (Photo and caption by Majed Ali/National Geographic Photography Contest)