A global dataset of 222 million biodiversity photo observations in GBIF by species, grid cell and country

Counts of biodiversity occurrence records shared through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), with a focus on human observations documented by still images (photo observations). The counts were computed by GBIF from its occurrence table on 20 October 2026 with nine SQL downloads and are given by species, by species and country, by 0.25-degree and 0.5-degree grid cells, by country, year and day, by family and year, and by source dataset. The files contain counts only: no images, no individual occurrence records and no names of recorders. Occurrence records: 3,844,380,653; image records: 319,128,852; photo observations: 222,490,861; species with at least one photo observation: 451,359. Files (UTF-8 comma-separated text; .gz files are gzip-compressed): species.csv.gz: One row per species: records, images and photo observations (1,741,964 rows) species_country.csv.gz: Photo observations per species and country or area (1,598,008 rows) grid_025deg_cells.csv.gz: One row per 0.25-degree cell with records: geometry, land area, country and totals (551,749 rows) grid_025deg_taxon.csv.gz: Records per 0.25-degree cell, basis-of-record group and taxon group (4,017,655 rows) grid_050deg_year.csv.gz: Image records per 0.5-degree cell, year and basis of record (947,309 rows) country_summary.csv: One row per country or area: records, images and photographed species (253 rows) country_year_class.csv.gz: Records per year, country or area, basis of record, class and iNaturalist origin (1,865,111 rows) family_year.csv.gz: Records per year, family and basis of record (1,601,214 rows) country_day.csv.gz: Image records per day (2000-2026), country or area and basis of record (1,282,900 rows) taxon_group_day.csv.gz: Image records per day (2000-2026), taxon group and basis of record (387,868 rows) datasets.csv.gz: Records per GBIF dataset, basis of record and kingdom, with registry metadata (125,375 rows) README.md: definitions, variables, taxon groups, known issues and sources Please cite this dataset together with the GBIF downloads listed under related works.