Press releases/Wikimedia Commons 10 million files

Wikimedia Commons Becomes Largest Global Online Resource for Freely Licensed Media

• Wikipedia sister site, Wikimedia Commons, surpasses 10 million media files

United Kingdom, XX March 2011: Wikipedia’s sister site, Wikimedia Commons, today announces it has surpassed 10 million media files making it world’s largest online repository of free-use images, video, animation, sounds and graphics. Wikimedia Commons (also known as Commons) has grown at a rate of one million media files per year since 2006 thanks to donations from a wide range of sources, from personal photography by Wikimedia Commons users to images from public archives.

Several projects have driven the expansion of Commons over the past three years. The Geograph British Isles project saw people upload a wide variety of images of UK beauty spots and landmarks. xxx images were uploaded in total, which included everything from a waterfall in Tessdale in the Pennines, England, to an image of people walking near Blackpool Tower.

Many images available via the Commons are high quality inspiring images. Every year the community celebrates these finest images by running an annual picture of the year competition. The best freely-licensed images are picked from those that have been awarded ‘featured picture’ status by the community throughout the year. There are currently 3,385 of such images in the Commons repository, which is roughly 0.03% of the available images.

The winner of the 2009 annual picture competition was an image of a Sikh pilgrim at the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) in Amritsar, India. It was taken by, Wikimedian (a Wikimedia Commons contributor) Paulrudd. The 2010 competition is still in progress.

Michael Peel, secretary of Wikimedia UK comments: “the content available on Wikimedia Commons is a great resource for individuals, bloggers, news outlets and any other organisation wanting to illustrate their story with quality media. We have a diverse group of contributors with over xxx volunteers from all over the world. There is definitely something for everyone on Commons.”

EDITORS' NOTES About Wikimedia Commons: Wikimedia Commons is a free image and media file repository, and is a sister project to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It was started on 7 September 2004, and is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.

About Wikimedia UK: Wikimedia UK is the local Wikimedia chapter covering the United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is an independent organisation that supports free and open knowledge throughout the United Kingdom, including promoting and supporting the projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

About the Wikimedia Foundation: The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is the US-based non-profit organisation that operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world. These include Wikipedia, one of the world's 10 most-visited websites, and Wikimedia Commons.

Further information: • Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/ • Featured pictures on Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_pictures.

For further information, please contact: Michael Peel, Secretary, Wikimedia UK Tel: +44 (0)7988 013 646 Email: michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk