The Entity API allows you to search for or retrieve information about entities that are referred to by items available in Europeana. It presently offers 3 methods:

Retrieval of the complete metadata set associated with an Entity
A way to suggest entities based on a string
a lookup method for resolving external URIs.

1 About the Europeana Entity collection
- 1.1 Identifiers for entities
- 1.2 Internal view of an entity
2 Supported classes of entities
- 2.1 Agent
- 2.2 Place
- 2.3 Time Span
- 2.4 Concept
- 2.5 Organisation
- 2.6 Other classes of resources that are common to all entities
3 Getting Started
4 Retrieving an Entity
5 Resolving an entity by using an external URI
6 Search for an entity
7 Roadmap and Changelog

About the Europeana Entity collection

In the context of Europeana APIs, an entity can be:

a person (or “agent”), for instance Lili Boulanger or Claude Debussy;
a topic (or “concept”) like Art Nouveau, migration or Musique Concrète
a place, for instance Perpignan, Bratislava or Arnhem
a time period, for instance the 21st century

Entities are helpful to provide context to an item and relate it to other items that have entities in common, which helps users to discover other items in the collection. They are linked to external data sources and controlled vocabularies like Wikidata, AAT, VIAF, ULAN, and Geonames and are regularly updated and consolidated.
The Entity API allows you to search for or retrieve information about entities that are referred to by items available in Europeana.It presently offers 3 methods:

Retrieval of the complete metadata set associated with an Entity;
A way to suggest entities based on a string;
a lookup method for resolving external URIs.

This collection is regularly updated and consolidated from external data sources so that the metadata is kept as fresh as possible.

Identifiers for entities

As linked open data resources, all Europeana entities are identified using URIs defined under the data.europeana.eu namespace. This means that such identifiers are content negotiable to either the Europeana Website or APIs depending on the format requested via the Accept header.

Syntax for URIs:

http://data.europeana.eu/[ENTITY_TYPE]/[ENTITY_ID]

Example:

http://data.europeana.eu/agent/59904

Internal view of an entity

The metadata that is made available for an entity is typically obtained from external data sources such as Wikidata. This data can also be complemented or changed to better fit the context in which they are used in Europeana. All this information is kept internally apart with its own provenance information for transparency and to facilitate its maintenance and management.

Field	Datatype	Description

Field	Datatype	Description
Entity
id	String (URI)	The unique identifier of the Entity.
… all metadata fields depending on the entity class …
proxies	Array (Object (Proxy))	The proxies represent a snapshot of the metadata that was aggregated from source and which will be consolidated into the main entity.
Proxy
id	String (URI)	The unique identifier of the Entity.
type	String	The type of the resource. Always set to "Proxy".
… all metadata fields obtained from the data source depending on the entity class …
proxyFor	String (URI)	A reference to the entity that this Proxy corresponds to
proxyIn	Object (Proxy Aggregation)	Represents the result of the aggregation of metadata of this entity from a specific data source.
Proxy Aggregation
id	String (URI)	The unique identifier of the aggregation corresponding to the associated Proxy.
type	String	The type of the resource. Always set to "Aggregation".
created	String (Datetime)	The time at which the metadata was obtained from the source. The value must be a Literal expressed as xsd:dateTime with the UTC timezone expressed as 'Z'.
modified	String (Datetime)	The time at which the metadata was modified from the source, after creation. The value must be a Literal expressed as xsd:dateTime with the UTC timezone expressed as 'Z'.
rights	String (URI)	The uri of the rights statement that indicates the copyright, usage and access rights of the metadata of the entity.
source	String (URI)	The URI of the source vocabulary where the metadata for the entity was obtained from.

Supported classes of entities

There are five classes of entities supported by this API, namely: Agent, Place, Concept, TimeSpan and Organisation. The following subsection describe the metadata fields used to describe the entities.

Agent

The Agent entity comprises people, either individually or in groups, who have the potential to perform intentional actions for which they can be held responsible.

Field	Datatype	Description

Field	Datatype	Description
Agent
id	String (URI)	The unique identifier of the Agent.
type	String	The type of the entity. Always set to "Agent" for agents.
depiction	Object (Web Resource)	A image resource where the entity is shown.
isShownBy	Object (Web Resource)	A image resource related to the entity.
prefLabel	Object (LangMap)	The preferred form of the name of the entity.
altLabel	Object (LangMap)	Alternative forms of the name of the entity.
dateOfBirth	String	The date the agent (person) was born.
dateOfEstablishment	String	The date on which the agent (corporate body) was established or founded.
dateOfDeath	String	The date the agent (person) died.
dateOfTermination	String	The date on which the agent (corporate body) was terminated or dissolved.
date	String	A significant date associated with the agent.
placeOfBirth	String (URI)	The town, city, province, state, and/or country in which a person was born.
placeOfDeath	String (URI)	The town, city, province, state, and/or country in which a person died.
gender	String	The gender with which the agent identifies.
professionOrOccupation	Array (String (URI))	The profession or occupation in which the agent works or has worked.
biographicalInformation	Object (LangMap)	Information pertaining to the life or history of the agent.
note	Object (LangMap)	Information related to the entity.
isPartOf	Array (String (URI))	Reference to an agent that the described agent is part of.
hasPart	Array (String (URI))	Reference to an Agent that is part of the Agent being described (e.g. part of a corporation).
hasMet	Array (String (URI))	Reference to another entity which the Agent has “met” in a broad sense. For example a reference to a Place.
isRelatedTo	Array(String(URI))	Reference to other entities, particularly other agents, with whom the agent is related in a generic sense.
identifier	String	An identifier for the entity.
sameAs	Array (String (URI))	URI of an equivalent entity in other vocabulary.
inScheme	Array (String (URI))	The concept scheme(s) that this entity belongs to.
isAggregatedBy	Object (Aggregation)	Represents the results of consolidating into a single representation the metadata obtained from different data sources.

Place

A physical location associated to a cultural heritage object. Presently, covers European countries and the most relevant places.

Field	Datatype	Description

Field	Datatype	Description
Place
id	String (URI)	The unique identifier of the Place.
type	String	The type of the entity. Always set to "Place" for places.
depiction	Object (Web Resource)	A image resource where the entity is shown.
isShownBy	Object (Web Resource)	A image resource related to the entity.
prefLabel	Object (LangMap)	The preferred form of the name of the entity.
altLabel	Object (LangMap)	Alternative forms of the name of the entity.
lat	Number	The latitude coordinate of the Place.
long	Number	The longitude coordinate of the Place.
alt	Number	The altitude of the Place.
note	Object (LangMap)	Information related to the entity.
hasPart	Array (String (URI))	Reference to an agent that the described agent is part of.
isPartOf	Array (String (URI))	Reference to an Agent that is part of the Agent being described (e.g. part of a corporation).
isNextInSequence	Array (String (URI))	Used to represent a sequence of Place entities over time e.g. the historical layers of the city of Troy.
sameAs	Array(String(URI))	URI of an equivalent entity in other vocabulary.
inScheme	Array(String(URI))	The concept scheme(s) that this entity belongs to.
isAggregatedBy	Object (Aggregation)	Represents the results of consolidating into a single representation the metadata obtained from different data sources.

Time Span

A period of time having a beginning, an end and a duration. Presently, only centuries AD are available in the Entity Collection.

Field	Datatype	Description

Field	Datatype	Description
Time Span
id	String (URI)	The unique identifier of the Time Span.
type	String	The type of the entity. Always set to "TimeSpan".
depiction	Object (Web Resource)	A image resource where the entity is shown.
isShownBy	Object (Web Resource)	A image resource related to the entity.
prefLabel	Object (LangMap)	The preferred form of the name of the entity.
altLabel	Object (LangMap)	Alternative forms of the name of the entity.
begin	String	The date the timespan started, represented in the form of an ISO 8601 date starting with the year and with hyphens (YYYY-MM-DD).
end	String	The date the timespan finshed represented in the form of an ISO 8601 date starting with the year and with hyphens (YYYY-MM-DD).
note	Object (LangMap)	Information related to the entity.
isPartOf	Array (String (URI))	Reference to a timespan of which the described timespan is a part.
hasPart	Array (String (URI))	Reference to a timespan which is part of the described Timespan.
isNextInSequence	Array (String (URI))	Can be used to represent a sequence of periods of time.
sameAs	Array(String(URI))	URI of an equivalent entity in other vocabulary.
inScheme	Array(String(URI))	The concept scheme(s) that this entity belongs to.
isAggregatedBy	Object (Aggregation)	Represents the results of consolidating into a single representation the metadata obtained from different data sources.

Concept

A Concept is defined as a unit of thought or meaning that comes from an organised knowledge base (such as subject terms from a thesaurus or controlled vocabulary) where URIs or local identifiers have been created to represent each concept.

Field	Datatype	Description

Field	Datatype	Description
Concept
id	String (URI)	The unique identifier of the Concept.
type	String	The type of the entity. Always set to "Concept".
depiction	Object (Web Resource)	A image resource where the Conceptis shown.
isShownBy	Object (Web Resource)	A image resource related to the Concept.
prefLabel	Object (LangMap)	The preferred form of the name of the Concept.
altLabel	Object (LangMap)	Alternative forms of the name of the Concept.
note	Object (LangMap)	Information related to the Concept.
notation	Array (Datatype Object)	The notation in which the Concept is represented.
broader	Array(String(URI))	A broader concept in the same thesaurus or controlled vocabulary.
narrower	Array(String(URI))	A narrower concept in the same thesaurus or controlled vocabulary.
related	Array(String(URI))	A related concept in the same thesaurus or controlled vocabulary.
broadMatch	Array(String(URI))	A broader matching concept from another thesaurus or controlled vocabulary.
narrowMatch	Array(String(URI))	A narrower matching concept from another thesaurus or controlled vocabulary.
relatedMatch	Array(String(URI))	A related matching concept from another thesaurus or controlled vocabulary.
closeMatch	Array(String(URI))	A close matching concept from another thesaurus or controlled vocabulary.
exactMatch	Array(String(URI))	URI of an equivalent Concept in other vocabulary.
inScheme	Array(String(URI))	The concept scheme(s) that this Concept belongs to.
isAggregatedBy	Object (Aggregation)	Represents the results of consolidating into a single representation the metadata obtained from different data sources.
proxies	Array (Object (Proxy))	The proxies represent a snapshot of the metadata that was aggregated from source and which will be consolidated into the main entity.

Organisation

The organisation providing data directly or via an aggregator.

Field	Datatype	Description

Field	Datatype	Description
Organisation
id	String (URI)	The unique identifier of the Organisation.
type	String	The type of the entity. Always set to "Organization".
depiction	Object (Web Resource)	A image resource where the Organisation is shown.
isShownBy	Object (Web Resource)	A image resource related to the Organisation.
prefLabel	Object (LangMap)	The preferred form of the name of the Organisation.
acronym	Object (LangMap)	The acronym of the Organisation.
altLabel	Object (LangMap)	Alternative forms of the name of the Organisation.
hiddenLabel	Array (String)	A lexical label not meant to be displayed.
description	Object (LangMap)	A description for this Organisation.
logo	Object (WebResource)	A image resource of the logo for this Organisation.
europeanaRole	Array (Object (Reference or Europeana Role))	The role in Europeana for this Organisation.
country	Object (Reference or Place)	The country of this Organisation
language	Array (String)	The official language(s) of the Organisation.
homepage	String (URL)	The homepage of the Organisation.
phone	String	The phone number of the Organisation.
mbox	String	The contact email address of the Organisation.
hasAddress	Object (Address)	The address of the Organisation.
aggregatesFrom	Array (Object (Reference or Organisation))	The Organisations that this Organisation aggregated from.
aggregatedVia	Array (Object (Reference or Organisation))	The Organisations that aggregate content from this Organisation.
identifier	Arrray (String)	An identifier for the Organisation.
sameAs	Array (String(URI))	URI of an equivalent entity in other vocabulary or data source.
isAggregatedBy	Object (Aggregation)	Represents the results of consolidating into a single representation the metadata obtained from different data sources.
proxies	Array (Object (Proxy))	The proxies represent a snapshot of the metadata that was aggregated from source and which will be consolidated into the main entity.
Address
id	String (URI)	The unique identifier of the Address.
type	String	The type of the entity. Always set to "Address".
streetAddress	String	The street address associated to the address of the Organisation.
postalCode	String	The postal code associated to the address of the Organisation.
postOfficeBox	String	The post office box associated to the address of the Organisation.
locality	String	The city or locality associated to the address of the Organisation.
countryName	String	The country associated to the address of the Organisation.
hasGeo	String (URI)	The geo URI containing the latitude and longitude coordinates of the Organisation.
Europeana Role
id	String (URI)	The unique identifier of the Role.
type	String	The type of the entity. Always set to "Concept".
prefLabel	Object (LangMap)	The preferred form of the name of the Role.

Other classes of resources that are common to all entities

Field	Datatype	Description

Field	Datatype	Description
Web Resource (ie. depiction or isShownBy)
id	String	The URL of the media resource
type	String	The type of the resource. Always set to "WebResource".
source	String	The source where the media resource was obtained from, typically the identifier of a record.
thumbnail	String	The URL of a lower resolution thumbnail.
Aggregation
id	String	The identifier of the aggregation.
type	String	The type of the resource. Always set to "Aggregation".
created	String (Datetime)	The time at which the entity was first created in Europeana. The value must be a Literal expressed as xsd:dateTime with the UTC timezone expressed as 'Z'.
modified	String (Datetime)	The time at which the metadata for the entity was modified as a result of an update from the source vocabulary or manually. The value must be a Literal expressed as xsd:dateTime with the UTC timezone expressed as 'Z'.
pageRank	Number	A non-negative integer specifying the page rank obtained from Wikidata for this resource.
recordCount	Integer	A non-negative integer specifying the number of items in Europeana that refer to this entity.
score	Number	A non-negative integer specifying the score number to be used when ranking this entity in search, suggest and enrich methods.
aggregates	Array (String (URI))	The identifiers of all proxy aggregations from which the metadata for this entity was obtained from and consolidated.

Getting Started

What you need to know about this API:

Adopts linked open data standards
Supports JSON-LD and RDF/XML (only for retrieving entity data)
Requires read access

Retrieving an Entity

Retrieves all metadata available for a specific entity. This includes all labels (preferred, alternative or others when applicable), descriptive and contextual information such as references to other entities and also references to external data sources (ie. correferencing). For a full list of data fields, please see the supported classes of entities section.

Request

https://api.europeana.eu/entity/[TYPE]/[IDENTIFIER]
Accept: [ACCEPT]

https://api.europeana.eu/entity/[TYPE]/[IDENTIFIER].[FORMAT]

Parameter	Location	Description

Parameter	Location	Description
TYPE	path	The type of the entity. One of: “agent“, “place“, “concept“, “timespan“, “organization“
IDENTIFIER	path	The local identifier of the entity.
ACCEPT	header	Indicates the preferred format(s) via which the entity is to be represented if the format is accepted by the service. Both JSON-LD and RDF/XML are supported.
FORMAT	path	Convenience method where the format is indicated as a path parameter instead of via the Accept header.
profile	query	A parameter used to define the extent of the response. Two profiles are supported, “internal“ and “external“ (default). internal: Presents the available metadata for an entity and associated administrative information. The metadata available for each entity is described in the Supported classes of entities section. external: Presents the internal view of metadata as described in Internal view of an entity section, in addition to the information present in the external profile.

Response

Request

GET https://api.europeana.eu/entity/agent/base/147466

Response

{
"@context": "http://www.europeana.eu/schemas/context/entity.jsonld",
"id": "http://data.europeana.eu/agent/147466",
"type": "Agent",
"isShownBy": {
  "id": "http://atena.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8366128&custom_att_2=deeplink",
  "type": "WebResource",
  "source": "http://data.europeana.eu/item/9200369/webclient_DeliveryManager_pid_8365778_custom_att_2_simple_viewer",
  "thumbnail": "https://api.europeana.eu/api/v2/thumbnail-by-url.json?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fatena.beic.it%2Fwebclient%2FDeliveryManager%3Fpid%3D8366399%26custom_att_2%3Ddeeplink&type=SOUND"
},
"prefLabel": {
  "de": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "fi": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "ru": "Артуро Тосканини",
  "sv": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "pt": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "bg": "Артуро Тосканини",
  "el": "Αρτούρο Τοσκανίνι",
  "en": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "hr": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "it": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "fr": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "hu": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "eu": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "sk": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "sl": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "ga": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "pl": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "ro": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "ca": "Arturo Toscanini",
  "nl": "Arturo Toscanini"
},
"altLabel": {
  "ru": [
    "Тосканини, Артуро"
  ]
},
"dateOfBirth": "1867-03-25",
"dateOfDeath": "1957-01-16",
"placeOfBirth": "http://data.europeana.eu/place/148579",
  "note": {
    "de": [
    "Italienischer Dirigent"
    ],
    "ru": [
    "Итальянский дирижёр"
    ],
    "fi": [
    "Italialainen kapellimestari"
    ],
    "sv": [
    "Italiensk dirigent"
    ],
    "bg": [
    "Италиански диригент"
    ],
    "el": [
    "Ιταλός διευθυντής ορχήστρας"
    ],
    "en": [
    "Italian conductor (1867-1957)"
    ],
    "it": [
    "Direttore d'orchestra italiano (1867-1957)"
    ],
    "fr": [
    "Chef d'orchestre italien"
    ],
    "pl": [
    "Dyrygent włoski"
    ],
    "hu": [
    "Olasz karmester"
    ],
    "nl": [
    "Italiaans dirigent"
    ]
  },
"hasMet": [
  "http://data.europeana.eu/concept/235"
],
"sameAs": [
  "http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q13003",
  "http://viaf.org/viaf/19867298",
  "https://d-nb.info/gnd/118623443",
  "http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50014549",
  "http://data.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb139005146",
  "http://www.idref.fr/027369293/id",
  "http://id.ndl.go.jp/auth/ndlna/00621569",
  "https://www.freebase.com/m/0140v2",
  "https://g.co/kg/m/0140v2",
  "http://openlibrary.org/works/OL5191079A",
  "http://libris.kb.se/resource/auth/313235",
  "http://datos.bne.es/resource/XX1282069",
  "http://data.bibliotheken.nl/id/thes/p072682442",
  "https://livedata.bibsys.no/authority/90606822",
  "http://id.worldcat.org/fast/4524",
  "http://data.cervantesvirtual.com/person/54819",
  "http://data.carnegiehall.org/names/10549",
  "https://libris.kb.se/mkz26r652wmwhm9",
  "http://dbpedia.org/resource/Arturo_Toscanini"
],
"isAggregatedBy": {
  "id": "http://data.europeana.eu/agent/147466#aggregation",
  "type": "Aggregation",
  "created": "2023-01-20T14:56:39Z",
  "modified": "2023-01-20T14:56:39Z",
  "pageRank": 36,
  "recordCount": 0,
  "score": 658,
  "aggregates": [
    "http://data.europeana.eu/agent/147466#aggr_europeana",
    "http://data.europeana.eu/agent/147466#aggr_source_1"
]
}
}

Resolving an entity by using an external URI

The resolve method was designed to search for entities in the Entity Collection that match a given identifier used by an external source. The response redirects you to the corresponding Europeana Entity through its URI. In case there is no equivalent Entity in Europeana, an HTTP 404 is returned. This method makes use of the co-reference information typically present within owl:sameAs properties (or skos:exactMatch in the case of entities of type skos:Concept) for the lookup.

Request

https://api.europeana.eu/entity/resolve?uri=[URI]
Accept: [ACCEPT]

Parameter	Location	Description

Parameter	Location	Description
URI	query	The external URI being used for entity lookup.
ACCEPT	header	Indicates the preferred format(s) which will be used by content negotiation to redirect to either the Europeana website for display formats or this API for machine readable formats.

Response

On success, the method returns an HTTP 301 with the Europeana URI within the Location Header field.

Request

GET https://api.europeana.eu/entity/resolve?wskey=apidemo&uri=http://dbpedia.org/resource/Leonardo_da_Vinci

Response

HTTP 301 data.europeana.eu/agent/146741

Search for an entity

Search for entities in the Entity Collection based on a given selection criteria.

Request

https://api.europeana.eu/entity/search
Accept: [ACCEPT]

Parameter	Location	Description

Parameter	Location	Description
query (required)	query	The text or search criteria to be used for searching.
qf	query	A search query filter, ie. a filter is applied on the result list to remove unwanted results and therefore has no effect on ranking. This parameter can be used multiple types if more than one query filter is needed.
type	query	Used to restrict matching to a specific entity class, or otherwise match all entity classes if either 'all' or no type is indicated.
scope	query	Used to restrict matching to a specific scope of entities. The only possible value for the moment is 'europeana' to limit results to entities that are referenced in the main Europeana database.
lang	query	A two letter ISO639 code of the language used for searching the text against. It also determines the data that will be returned for the entity description by keeping only the data that is qualifed with the requested language. Available values : en, nl, fr, de, es, sv, it, fi, da, el, cs, sk, sl, pt, hu, lt, pl, ro, bg, hr, lv, ga, mt, et, no, ca, ru, eu
profile	query	A parameter used to define the extent of the response. Only one profile is supported, namely “facets“. facets: Performs the faceting on the selected fields and presents the counts from the top most frequent value for a field to the lowest.
page	query	The number of the page (defaults to 1).
pageSize	query	The number of items to retrieve, maximum is 100, defaults to 10.
sort	query	A comma separated list of fields used for sorting the results. The field can be suffixed with the order in which the results are sorted, either 'asc' or 'desc' by the following: <field_name>+<sort_order>. The special keyword 'score' can be used to order by the ranking as determined by the search engine (which is the default).
facet	query	A comma separated list of fields to be returned as facets for the given query.

“Search for all organization entities that have the word ‘unternehmen’ in their metadata:

https://api.europeana.eu/entity/search?&query=unternehmen&type=organization

Response

Field	Datatype	Description

Field	Datatype	Description
Search Result Page
id	String (URI)	The identifier of the search results page.
type	String	The type of the resource. Always set to "ResultPage".
partOf	Object (Result List)	The list of all results matching the search query.
facets	Array (Object (Facet))	The list of all facets that reflect the results that match the search query.
total	Integer	The total number of entities in the result page.
items	Array (Entity)	The entities that are part of this result page.
next	String (URI)	A reference to the previous page in the sequence of pages that make up the search results.
prev	String (URI)	A reference to the next page in the sequence of pages that make up the search results.
Search Result List
id	String (URI)	The identifier of the search result list.
type	String	The type of the resource. Always set to "ResultList".
total	Integer	The total number of results matching the search query.
first	String (URI)	Indicates the first preceding page of results in the result list.
last	String (URI)	Indicates the furthest proceeding page of results in the result list.
Facet
type	String	The type of the resource. Always set to "Facet".
field	String	The name of the field being facetted.
values	Array (Object (Facet Value))	The top most frequent values that were found in the field.
Facet Value
label	String	The value that was found in the field.
value	Integer	The total number of entities that contain this value in the field.

Roadmap and Changelog

The current version of the Entities API is 0.10.3 (December 2021) which has support for suggest, retrieval and resolution by external identifier. It is currently available as a Public Alpha, which is the first public version released primarily to get feedback from you. Do note that this means that changes can be introduced which could break backwards compatibility. It also means that to use this API you need a separate API key than for the other Europeana APIs. To see the changes made for the current version and also all previous releases, see the API changelog in the project GitHub.

Europeana Knowledge Base

Entity API Documentation

About the Europeana Entity collection

Identifiers for entities

Internal view of an entity

Supported classes of entities

Agent

Place

Time Span

Concept

Organisation

Other classes of resources that are common to all entities

Getting Started

What you need to know about this API:

Retrieving an Entity

Request

Response

Resolving an entity by using an external URI

Request

Response

Search for an entity

Request

Response

Roadmap and Changelog