Dear Wikimedians,

We are happy to announce that the 2016 Picture of the Year competition is now open.

Hundreds of images that have been rated Featured Pictures by the international Wikimedia Commons community. From professional animal and plant shots to breathtaking panoramas and skylines, historically relevant images, images portraying the world's best architecture, maps created with the most modern technology, Commons features pictures of all flavors.

For your convenience, we have sorted the images into topic categories. Two rounds of voting will be held: In the first round, you can vote for as many images as you like. The first round category winners and the top ten overall will then make it to the final. In the final round, when a limited number of images are left, you must decide on the one image that you want to become the Picture of the Year.

To see the candidate images just go to the POTY 2016 page on Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2016

Round 1 will end 30 March 2017, 23:59:59.

Thanks, POTY 2016 committee

Note: Users must vote with an account meeting following requirements: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2016/Rules