Wikimedia Commons API
by commons.wikimedia.org
Image and photo
Added on October 31st, 2026
Checked and working on November 2nd, 2026
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What it does
Wikimedia Commons holds more than 100 million freely licensed images, sounds and videos, used by Wikipedia and many other sites. The MediaWiki API lets you search files, get their URLs in any size, and read their licence, author and description, which you need to credit them correctly. Responses are JSON. Free, no key needed; check the licence of each file before you use it.
At a glance
- API key
- Not needed · More APIs with no key
- Pricing
- Free, no key needed; check the licence of each file before you use it.
- From the browser
- Yes (CORS)
- Formats
- JSON
- Interface
- REST, HTTP-GET
- Provider
- commons.wikimedia.org
- Last checked
- Working on November 2nd, 2026
More information: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:API
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Example request
curl
curl 'https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=search&srsearch=London&srnamespace=6&srlimit=1&format=json&origin=*'JavaScript
const response = await fetch("https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=search&srsearch=London&srnamespace=6&srlimit=1&format=json&origin=*");
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);Python
import requests
response = requests.get(
"https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=search&srsearch=London&srnamespace=6&srlimit=1&format=json&origin=*",
timeout=30,
)
print(response.json())The JavaScript works in a web page as well as in Node.js 18 or newer.