Wikimedia Commons
commons.wikimedia.org
Wikipedia's free media repository, holding tens of millions of freely licensed images, audio and video files with licence details for each.
Why it is useful
A reliable source of images you can reuse, with the licence and author listed on each file page. It also holds large collections of historical photographs, maps and artworks that museums and libraries have donated.
More in Archives
Other archives you might not have heard of.
- Smithsonian Open AccessFree access to millions of high-resolution images and 3D models from the Smithsonian Institution's collections, all released for unrestricted use.
- Rijksmuseum CollectionThe Rijksmuseum's online collection of Dutch art and history, including works by Rembrandt and Vermeer, with high-resolution images of public-domain pieces.
- Auto Catalog ArchiveAn extensive digital collection of historical car brochures and catalogs from worldwide manufacturers, dating back several decades.
- National ArchivesThe official repository of US federal government records, providing public access to historical documents, photographs, military records, and legislative materials.
- Fulton HistoryA huge free archive of digitised historical newspapers, mostly from New York State and the surrounding region, with tens of millions of searchable pages.
- Version MuseumA visual archive of how popular websites, software, and operating systems looked across every major version — screenshots of Google, Facebook, Windows, iOS, and hundreds of other products from launch to present.