Introduction
Core Concepts is the ontology for representing concepts such as people, places, events, organisations and themes that make sense across the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ.
This model enables clients to connect their own domain-specific classes – e.g., athletes or politicians – via the rdfs:subClassOf property.

Sample data
Here are some example triples about Queen Victoria in Turtle format:-
@prefix core: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/ontologies/coreconcepts/> .
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/1efbf3e5-b330-49a1-b531-b507ab027c96#id>
a core:Person ;
core:preferredLabel "Queen Victoria"@en-gb ;
core:disambiguationHint "British Monarch"@en-gb ;
core:primaryTopicOf <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria> ;
core:sameAs <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Queen_Victoria> , <http://rdf.freebase.com/ns/m.0cw10> , <http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q9439> .
Metadata
Created | 2012-12-01 |
Last modified | 2025-05-20 |
Current version | 1.42 |
Authors | jeremy.tarling@bbc.co.uk, tom.hodgkinson@bbc.co.uk |
Licence | |
Download | Core Concepts ontology (Turtle format) |
Classes
Animal
URI | |
Description | a subclass of core:Thing to classify animals |
Superclasses | Thing |
CeremonialCounty
URI | |
Description | These are geographic counties, often representing more permanent features of English geography, and to distinguish them from counties of England which have a present-day administrative function. |
Superclasses | Place, Thing |
CrownDependency
URI | |
Description | Crown dependencies are independently administered jurisdictions which do not form part of either the United Kingdom or the British Overseas Territories. They are self-governing possessions of the Crown (defined uniquely in each jurisdiction). |
Superclasses | Place, Thing |
EditorialSensitivity
URI | |
Description | An editorial sensitivity for a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ asset. |
EditorialTone
URI | |
Description | An editorial tone of a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ asset. |
Superclasses | Thing |
Range for | editorialTone |
Event
URI | |
Description | The class of events in the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. This is a generic class to represent events (music events, historic events, sports events, politics events, etc.). |
Superclasses | Thing |
Subclasses | , EventSeries |
Domain for | endDate, eventOrganisation, eventPerson, eventPlace, eventTheme, startDate, subEventOf, superEventOf |
Range for | subEventOf, superEventOf |
EventSeries
URI | |
Description | The class of event series in the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, whose events share a unifying characteristic such as regular instances, e.g. Glastonbury or the Olympic Games |
Superclasses | Event, Thing |
Language
URI | |
Description | Human languages supported by the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. |
Domain for | languageCode |
Range for | language |
Mineral
URI | |
Description | a subclass of core:Thing to classify minerals |
Superclasses | Thing |
MusicArtist
URI | |
Description | a subclass of core:Thing to classify music artists |
Superclasses | Thing |
Subclasses | MusicGroup, SoloMusicArtist |
MusicGroup
URI | |
Description | a subclass of core:Thing to classify music groups |
Superclasses | MusicArtist, Thing |
Organisation
URI | |
Description | The class of organisations in the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. e.g., Businesses. |
Superclasses | Thing |
Subclasses | , , , , , , , , , |
Range for | eventOrganisation |
Person
URI | |
Description | The class of people in the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. Subclasses of this can be all types of people such as politicians, athletes, historic figures, contributors in programmes, etc. |
Superclasses | Thing |
Subclasses | , , SoloMusicArtist |
Domain for | dateOfBirth, dateOfDeath, knownFor, occupation, placeOfBirth, placeOfDeath |
Range for | eventPerson |
Place
URI | |
Description | The class of places in the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. |
Superclasses | Thing |
Subclasses | CeremonialCounty, , CrownDependency, , TraditionalCounty |
Domain for | |
Range for | , eventPlace, placeOfBirth, placeOfDeath, , workLocation |
SoloMusicArtist
URI | |
Description | a subclass of core:Thing to classify solo music artists |
Superclasses | MusicArtist, Person, Thing |
Theme
URI | |
Description | This concept is used to represent intangible things or abstract concepts, e.g. financial crisis, midwifery, happiness. |
Superclasses | Thing |
Subclasses | , , , |
Range for | eventTheme, occupation |
Thing
URI | |
Description | The superclass of all things the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ creates or talks about. |
Subclasses | , Animal, CeremonialCounty, , , , , , , CrownDependency, , EditorialTone, , Event, EventSeries, , , , , , , , , , Mineral, MusicArtist, MusicGroup, , , Organisation, , Person, , Place, , , , SoloMusicArtist, , , , Theme, TraditionalCounty, Vegetable, |
Domain for | |
Range for | , knowsAbout |
TraditionalCounty
URI | |
Description | The traditional counties of Northern Ireland were the principal local government divisions of Northern Ireland from its creation in 1921 until 1972, when their governmental features were abolished and replaced with twenty-six unitary authorities |
Superclasses | Place, Thing |
Vegetable
URI | |
Description | a subclass of core:Thing to classify vegetables |
Superclasses | Thing |
Properties
dateOfBirth
URI | |
Description | A person's date of birth. |
Domain | Person |
Range |
dateOfDeath
URI | |
Description | A person's date of death. |
Domain | Person |
Range |
disambiguationHint
URI | |
Description | One or two words to distinguish between entities that have similar labels - often displayed to both internal and external audiences. |
Range |
editorialTone
URI | |
Description | This property associates a Thing with an editorial tone. |
Range | EditorialTone |
endDate
URI | |
Description | End Date of an Event |
Domain | Event |
Range |
eventOrganisation
URI | |
Description | organisation as agent in an event |
Superproperties | notablyAssociatedWith |
Domain | Event |
Range | Organisation |
eventPerson
URI | |
Description | person as agent in an event |
Superproperties | notablyAssociatedWith |
Domain | Event |
Range | Person |
eventPlace
URI | |
Description | place as location of an event |
Superproperties | notablyAssociatedWith |
Domain | Event |
Range | Place |
eventTheme
URI | |
Description | theme as factor in an event |
Superproperties | notablyAssociatedWith |
Domain | Event |
Range | Theme |
hasPart
URI | |
Description | Associates one owl:Thing with another owl:Thing below it in a hierarchy |
Domain | |
Range |
isPartOf
URI | |
Description | Associates one owl:Thing with another owl:Thing above it in a hierarchy |
Subproperties | |
Domain | |
Range |
knownFor
URI | |
Description | A short summary of what a person is notably known for |
Domain | Person |
Range |
knowsAbout
URI | |
Description | Connects an agent to a subject about which they have knowledge, suggesting possible expertise. |
Range | Thing |
label
URI | |
Description | The a label for a thing. A thing may have one label per language. |
Subproperties | preferredLabel |
Range |
language
URI | |
Description | A human language. |
Range | Language |
languageCode
URI | |
Description | A human language's BCP 47 code, incorporating ISO 639-1 code and optional ISO 3166-2 sub-code. |
Domain | Language |
Range |
notablyAssociatedWith
URI | |
Description | This is a high level property aiming to describe a real-world association between a tag concept and any other tag concept. For example that Tom Daley is notablyAssociatedWith diving, or Glastonbury is notablyAssociatedWith music, or the editorial tone of 'relaxed' is notablyAssociatedWith the audience motivation of 'Help me unwind'. |
Subproperties | , eventOrganisation, eventPerson, eventPlace, eventTheme, occupation, placeOfBirth, placeOfDeath, subEventOf |
Domain | |
Range |
occupation
URI | |
Description | This property associates a person with a thematic area he or she worked in, for example Annie Lennox with Music. |
Superproperties | notablyAssociatedWith |
Domain | Person |
Range | Theme |
placeOfBirth
URI | |
Description | A person's place of birth. |
Superproperties | notablyAssociatedWith |
Domain | Person |
Range | Place |
placeOfDeath
URI | |
Description | A person's place of death |
Superproperties | notablyAssociatedWith |
Domain | Person |
Range | Place |
preferredLabel
URI | |
Description | The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ editorially preferred label for a thing. A thing may have one and only one preferredLabel |
Superproperties | label |
Range |
primaryTopic
URI | |
Description | Represents the fact that a thing (usually concept, e.g., Tom Daley) is the primary topic of a web document. |
primaryTopicOf
URI | |
Description | Represents the fact that a thing (usually concept, e.g., Tom Daley) is the primary topic of a web document. |
Range |
sameAs
URI | |
Description | Indicates that something is the same as something else, but in a way that is slightly weaker than owl:sameAs. It's purpose is to connect separate identities of the same thing, whilst keeping separation between the original statements of each. |
Range |
shortLabel
URI | |
Description | A short label for a thing usually needed for presentation purposes. |
Range |
slug
URI | |
Description | Human readable keywords that may be used in a programmatic fashion e.g., manchester-city. |
Range |
startDate
URI | |
Description | Start Date of an Event |
Domain | Event |
Range |
subEventOf
URI | |
Description | Connects an event to another (broader) event, commonly a series, e.g. Glastonbury 2024 -> Glastonbury |
Superproperties | notablyAssociatedWith |
Domain | Event |
Range | Event |
superEventOf
URI | |
Description | Connects an event to another (narrower) event, e.g. Glastonbury -> Glastonbury 2024 |
Domain | Event |
Range | Event |
workLocation
URI | |
Description | Connects an agent to a place associated with their work. |
Range | Place |