Commons:Discover Wikimedia Commons/0

Discover Wikimedia Commons
❯  WHO WE ARE

Defining Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons is one of the largest collections of freely-licensed photos, graphics, animations, videos, and audio recordings in the world. It stores all the content that illustrates Wikipedia articles and then some. In fact, some people might think of it like a giant box, capable of holding all 105,258,601 items.

But Wikimedia Commons is far more than a box. It's a living, breathing collaboration between people around the globe. It's a virtual home for artists, archivists, filmmakers, historians, and photographers dedicated to sharing all these things with the world.

In addition to sharing their work, the Wikimedia Commons community helps to curate the files on Commons, encourage new contributions, remove files that aren’t allowed, and answer questions from new users.

Fundamental principles

As a sister project of Wikipedia, we're dedicated to spreading free knowledge around the world by making it accessible and reusable. Our project is based on a few simple ideas:

• Share educational content to help the world understand. Our content is tremendously diverse, but it isn't random. Each file here should be useful for an educational purpose—to inform, to instruct, and to inspire.
• Share content that anyone can use, for any purpose. Each file on our project can be reused because it is freely licensed. Venture on and we'll explain exactly how we ensure that our project is open, free, and reusable.
• Share in the experience of working toward a common goal. We endeavor to become the premier collection of media in the world, free from unnecessary restrictions. It's home to one of the most diverse and engaged communities in the world.

NEXT STEPS ❯❯❯ JOIN THE PROJECT