Core Concepts Ontology
type: Ontology
comment: The generic BBC ontology for people, places, events, organisations, themes which represent things that make sense across the BBC. This model is meant to be generic enough, and allow clients (domain experts) to link their own concepts e.g., athletes or politicians using rdfs:subClassOf the particular concept.
date: 2025-05-20
license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
canonical location: https://github.com/bbc/common-metadata/raw/master/ontologies/coreconcepts.ttl
change reason: METADATA-1664 Corrected EventSeries label; reinstated hasPart; deprecated redundant concepts
public: true
slug: coreconcepts
version: 1.42
imports: http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
imports: terms
imports: provenance
prior version: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ontologies/coreconcepts/1.41
version IRI: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ontologies/coreconcepts/1.42
version info: 1.42

Event
type: Class
comment: The class of events in the BBC. This is a generic class to represent events (music events, historic events, sports events, politics events, etc.).
subclass of: Thing

EventSeries
type: Class
comment: The class of event series in the BBC, whose events share a unifying characteristic such as regular instances, e.g. Glastonbury or the Olympic Games
subclass of: Event

Organisation
type: Class
comment: The class of organisations in the BBC. e.g., Businesses.
subclass of: Thing
subclass of: Agent

Person
type: Class
comment: The class of people in the BBC. Subclasses of this can be all types of people such as politicians, athletes, historic figures, contributors in programmes, etc.
subclass of: Thing
subclass of: Agent

Place
type: Class
comment: The class of places in the BBC.
subclass of: Thing

CeremonialCounty
type: Class
comment: 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.
subclass of: Place

CrownDependency
type: Class
comment: 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).
subclass of: Place

TraditionalCounty
type: Class
comment: 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
subclass of: Place

Theme
type: Class
comment: This concept is used to represent intangible things or abstract concepts, e.g. financial crisis, midwifery, happiness.
subclass of: Thing

Thing
type: Class
comment: The superclass of all things the BBC creates or talks about.
subclass of: Thing

IntendedAudience
type: Class
deprecated: true

Language
type: Class
comment: Human languages supported by the BBC.
subclass of: TagConcept

EditorialSensitivity
type: Class
comment: An editorial sensitivity for a BBC asset.

EditorialTone
type: Class
comment: An editorial tone of a BBC asset.
subclass of: Thing

Animal
type: Class
comment: a subclass of core:Thing to classify animals
subclass of: Thing

Vegetable
type: Class
comment: a subclass of core:Thing to classify vegetables
subclass of: Thing

Mineral
type: Class
comment: a subclass of core:Thing to classify minerals
subclass of: Thing

MusicArtist
type: Class
comment: a person or a group of people responsible for a musical creative work
subclass of: MusicArtist

MusicArtist
type: Class
comment: a subclass of core:Thing to classify music artists
subclass of: Thing
subclass of: Agent

SoloMusicArtist
type: Class
comment: a single person responsible for a musical creative work.
subclass of: MusicArtist
subclass of: SoloMusicArtist

SoloMusicArtist
type: Class
comment: a subclass of core:Thing to classify solo music artists
subclass of: MusicArtist
subclass of: Person

MusicGroup
type: Class
comment: a group of musicians responsible for a musical creative work
subclass of: MusicArtist
subclass of: MusicGroup

MusicGroup
type: Class
comment: a subclass of core:Thing to classify music groups
subclass of: MusicArtist

intendedAudience
type: ObjectProperty
deprecated: true

language
type: ObjectProperty
comment: A human language.
range: Language

languageCode
type: DatatypeProperty
comment: A human language's BCP 47 code, incorporating ISO 639-1 code and optional ISO 3166-2 sub-code.
domain: Language
range: string

editorialSensitivity
type: ObjectProperty
deprecated: true
is deprecated by: editorialSensitivity

editorialTone
type: ObjectProperty
comment: This property associates a Thing with an editorial tone.
range: EditorialTone

dateOfBirth
type: DatatypeProperty
comment: A person's date of birth.
domain: Person
range: dateTime

dateOfDeath
type: DatatypeProperty
comment: A person's date of death.
domain: Person
range: dateTime

disambiguationHint
type: DatatypeProperty
comment: One or two words to distinguish between entities that have similar labels - often displayed to both internal and external audiences.
range: string

notablyAssociatedWith
type: ObjectProperty
comment: 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'.
domain: Thing
range: Thing

occupation
type: ObjectProperty
comment: This property associates a person with a thematic area he or she worked in, for example Annie Lennox with Music.
domain: Person
range: Theme
sub property of: notablyAssociatedWith

placeOfBirth
type: ObjectProperty
comment: A person's place of birth.
domain: Person
range: Place
sub property of: notablyAssociatedWith

placeOfDeath
type: ObjectProperty
comment: A person's place of death
domain: Person
range: Place
sub property of: notablyAssociatedWith

knownFor
type: DatatypeProperty
comment: A short summary of what a person is notably known for
domain: Person
range: string

label
type: DatatypeProperty
comment: The a label for a thing. A thing may have one label per language.
range: string

altLabel
type: ObjectProperty
comment: An alternative lexical label for a resource
sub property of: altLabel
domain: TagConcept
range: string
deprecated: true
is deprecated by: altLabel

preferredLabel
type: DatatypeProperty
comment: The BBC editorially preferred label for a thing. A thing may have one and only one preferredLabel
range: string
sub property of: label

primaryTopic
type: ObjectProperty
comment: Represents the fact that a thing (usually concept, e.g., Tom Daley) is the primary topic of a web document.
range: TagConcept
inverse of: primaryTopicOf

primaryTopicOf
type: ObjectProperty
comment: Represents the fact that a thing (usually concept, e.g., Tom Daley) is the primary topic of a web document.
range: WebDocument
inverse of: primaryTopic

sameAs
type: ObjectProperty
comment: 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: Thing

shortLabel
type: DatatypeProperty
comment: A short label for a thing usually needed for presentation purposes.
range: string

slug
type: DatatypeProperty
comment: Human readable keywords that may be used in a programmatic fashion e.g., manchester-city.
range: string

startDate
type: DatatypeProperty
comment: Start Date of an Event
domain: Event
range: date

endDate
type: DatatypeProperty
comment: End Date of an Event
domain: Event
range: date

eventPerson
type: ObjectProperty
domain: Event
range: Person
comment: person as agent in an event
sub property of: notablyAssociatedWith

eventOrganisation
type: ObjectProperty
domain: Event
range: Organisation
comment: organisation as agent in an event
sub property of: notablyAssociatedWith

eventPlace
type: ObjectProperty
domain: Event
range: Place
comment: place as location of an event
sub property of: notablyAssociatedWith

eventTheme
type: ObjectProperty
domain: Event
range: Theme
comment: theme as factor in an event
sub property of: notablyAssociatedWith

isPartOf
type: TransitiveProperty
domain: Thing
range: Thing
comment: Associates one owl:Thing with another owl:Thing above it in a hierarchy

hasPart
type: TransitiveProperty
domain: Thing
range: Thing
comment: Associates one owl:Thing with another owl:Thing below it in a hierarchy
inverse of: isPartOf

workLocation
type: ObjectProperty
comment: Connects an agent to a place associated with their work.
domain: Agent
range: Place

knowsAbout
type: ObjectProperty
comment: Connects an agent to a subject about which they have knowledge, suggesting possible expertise.
domain: Agent
range: Thing

subEventOf
type: TransitiveProperty
comment: Connects an event to another (broader) event, commonly a series, e.g. Glastonbury 2024 -> Glastonbury
domain: Event
range: Event
sub property of: notablyAssociatedWith

superEventOf
type: TransitiveProperty
comment: Connects an event to another (narrower) event, e.g. Glastonbury -> Glastonbury 2024
domain: Event
range: Event
inverse of: subEventOf