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
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 am 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.
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.