Flickr celebrates Commons’ fifth year and 250k photos with galleries of most viewed pics

Flickr Commons, a collection of public domain photographs founded initially through a partnership with the US Library of Congress, is celebrating its fifth anniversary. The collection was first launched on January 16 2008 with 1,500 photos, and has expanded rapidly since.

With dozens of partner institutions under its belt, Flickr touts that its Commons collection has since garnered 2 million tags and over 165,000 comments. As of last year there were more than 200,000 photos — the collection has since grown past 250,000.

In celebration, Flickr and the LoC has asked member institutions to send in links to a few of their most viewed, commented, or favorited images. The resulting galleries are particularly impressive. Here’s a preview of some of our favorites:

For more, check out the following galleries: Flickr Commons Favorites 1, 2, 3 and 4