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Core Concepts ontology

The generic ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ ontology for entities that matter to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and our audiences.

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.

A nodes-and-edges diagram with core:Thing as the central node and example subclasses & properties as connected nodes
A core:Thing-centric example of properties & subclasses in the Core Concepts ontology

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

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