The Linked Places format (LPF)

v1.3, 24 June 2024 changes:

• The fclasses property is now required, both in full LPF and LP-TSV formats. An fclass is one of the seven GeoNames Feature Class codes WHG supports. This change is necessary because reconciliation results for records with no type mapped to our AAT identifiers produced inferior results, discouraging use of the system. NOTE: fclasses is a list, or array - so you can add multiple letters. For example ["A", "P"] will find both settlements and municipalities with the same name.

A: Administrative entities (e.g. countries, provinces, municipalities); H: Water bodies (e.g. rivers, lakes, bays, seas); L: Regions, landscape areas (cultural, geographic, historical); P: Populated places (e.g. cities, towns, hamlets); R: Roads, routes, rail; S: Sites (e.g. archaeological sites, buildings, complexes); T: Terrestrial landforms (e.g. mountains, valleys, capes)

v1.2.2, 12 March 2023 changes:

• added 'native peoples reservation' AAT place type to the WHG-supported list.

v1.2.2, 4 September 2022 changes:

• added optional "certainty" attribute to the "when" element, wherever it is used, as already allowed for the geometries and relations elements.

• added the entry "wd": "http://www.wikidata.org/entity/" to the namespace aliases in the Linked Places format context document.

NOTES

• An alternative delimited file format, LP-Delimited (LP-TSV) is supported by World Historical Gazetteer, appropriate for relatively simple place records, e.g. those without temporally scoped names, geometries, etc., and without multiple name variants including citations.

• LPF v1.2 is implemented in current versions of World Historical Gazetteer and related projects, including Recogito. There is a need to make improvements in a Version 2 and to improve the supporting Linked Pasts ontology. Please consider joining the Linked Places working group discussing and implementing next steps; anyone with interest is welcome.

• Development of a related Linked Traces annotation format is under way, discussed in its own repo

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The Linked Places format supercedes the Pelagios Gazetteer Interconnection Format (PGIF) as a standard for contributions to several partner projects in the Pelagios Network including Recogito, Peripleo-lite, the World Historical Gazetteer, and PeriodO. Although these place (and/or period) data aggregation projects have distinctive features, each are building software tools and services allowing their users to:

• search across different gazetteers
• find enough information to identify and disambiguate places
• annotate data with stable URIs to the most appropriate gazetteer

Our goal is not to define The One unified data model for gazetteers. Historical research projects producing gazetteer data have distinctive data models reflecting their source data and project-specific requirements. Linked Places format provides a uniform way to build links between different gazetteers, along with just enough additional metadata to support the three requirements above.

The Linked Places format and the earlier PGIF are both valid RDF, the cornerstone format for Linked Open Data and the Semantic Web. Linked Places differs from PGIF in these ways:

• it is designed primarily around JSON-LD syntax, which makes it both valid RDF (XML, Turtle, etc.) and JSON
• it is valid GeoJSON, therefore readily rendered in many web mapping applications; in fact, it is an implementation of GeoJSON-T, an experimental extension to GeoJSON that standardizes the representation of temporal attributes
• it provides for optional temporal scoping of names, geometry, place types, and place relations

An example Linked Places record

Contributions take the form of a GeoJSON-LD FeatureCollection containing one or more Feature objects. In order to index metadata about place records from multiple gazetteers, Linked Places accommodates these attribute elements: id, title, ccodes, names*, types*, geometry*, relations*, descriptions, depictions, links, and when (asterisk * indicates elements that can be temporally scoped).

All property labels (keys) are aliases for terms formally defined in several linked ontologies; mappings for them are listed in this JSON-LD context document, and informal notes about them appear below. Several terms introduced in the Linked Places format are defined in the draft Linked Pasts Ontology (lpo:).

Various serializations of the following sample record can be explored in the JSON-LD Playground. Because Linked Places format is valid GeoJSON, the collection is also mappable, as seen in the example rendered automatically in GitHub.

NB. Sorry to say, support for GeoJSON GeometryCollections is gone from GitHub, and the JSON-LD playground needs CORS support to read our context file, which GitHub does not provide. Open to suggestions.

{
  "type": "FeatureCollection",
  "@context": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LinkedPasts/linked-places/master/linkedplaces-context-v1.1.jsonld",
  "features": [
    { "@id": "http://mygaz.org/places/p_12345",
      "type": "Feature",
      "properties":{
        "title": "Abingdon (UK)",
        "ccodes": ["GB"],
        "fclasses": ["P"]
      },
      "when": {
        "timespans": [{"start": {"in":"0676"},"end": {"in":"1066"}}],
        "periods": [
          { "name": "Anglo-Saxon Period, 449-1066",
            "@id": "periodo:p06c6g3whtg"},
          { "name": "Anglo-Saxon (culture or style)",
            "@id": "http://chronontology.dainst.org/period/O5r960WKERYr"}
        ],
        "label": "sample 'when' w/timespans, periods, duration",
        "duration": "P100Y",
        "certainty": "less-certain"
      },
      "names": [
        { "toponym":"Abingdon",
          "lang":"en",
          "citations": [
            {"label": "Ye Olde Gazetteer (1635)",
             "year": 1635,
             "@id":"http://archive.org/details/yeoldegazetteer"}],
          "when": { "timespans":[{"start":{"in":"1600"}}]}
        },
        { "toponym":"Abingdon-on-Thames", "lang":"en",
          "when": {
          	"timespans":[{"start":{"in":"1600"}}],
          	"certainty":"certain"
          }
        }
      ],
      "types": [
        { "identifier": "aat:300008375",
          "label": "town",
          "sourceLabels": [{"label":"Market Town","lang":"en"}],
          "when": {"timespans":[{"start":{"in":"1600"}}]} }
      ],
      "geometry": {
        "type": "GeometryCollection",
        "geometries": [
            { "type": "Point",
              "coordinates": [-1.2879,51.6708],
              "when": {"timespans":[
                {"start":{"in":"1600"},"end":{"in":"1699"}}]},
              "citations": [
                {"label": "Getty TGN (retrieved 4 May 2018)",
                 "@id":"tgn:7011944"}],
              "certainty": "certain"
            },
            { "type": "Point",
              "coordinates": [-1.31,51.64],
              "geowkt": "POLYGON ((-1.3077 51.6542, -1.2555 51.6542, -1.2555 51.6908, -1.3077 51.6908, -1.3077 51.6542))",
              "when": {"timespans":[{"start":{"in":"1700"}}]},
              "certainty": "uncertain"
            }
        ]
      },
      "links": [
        {"type": "exactMatch", "identifier": "http://vocab.getty.edu/tgn/7011944"},
        {"type": "exactMatch", "identifier": "http://www.geonames.org/2657780/"},
        {"type": "closeMatch", "identifier": "http://somegaz.org/places/39847"},
        {"type": "primaryTopicOf", "identifier": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abingdon-on-Thames"},
        {"type": "subjectOf", "identifier": "http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Camden/11#pn_3"},
        {"type": "seeAlso", "identifier": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86bbe_of_Coldingham"}
      ],
      "relations": [
        { "relationType": "gvp:broaderPartitive",
          "relationTo": "http://mygaz.org/places/p_9876",
          "label": "part of Berkshire (UK)",
          "when": {"timespans":[
            {"start":{"in":"1600"},"end":{"in":"1974"}}
          ]}
        },
        { "relationType": "gvp:broaderPartitive",
          "relationTo": "http://mygaz.org/places/p_3456",
          "label": "part of Oxfordshire (UK)",
          "when": {"timespans":[{"start":{"in":"1974"}}]}
        },
        { "relationType": "gvp:tgn3000_related_to",
          "relationTo": "http://mygaz.org/places/p_98765",
          "label": "Linked to Semington by Kennet and Avon Canal",
          "when":{"timespans":[
            {"start":{"in":"1790"} }]},
          "citations": [
            {"label": "Harrumph (1923)",
             "year": 1923,
             "@id": "doi:10.1109/5.771073"}],
          "certainty": "certain"
        }
      ],
      "descriptions": [
        { "@id": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abingdon-on-Thames",
          "value": "...a historic market town and civil parish...",
          "lang": "en"
        }
      ],
      "depictions": [
        { "@id": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ThamesAtAbingdon.jpg",
          "title": "The River Thames at Abingdon, Oxfordshire",
          "license": "cc:by-sa/3.0/"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Linked Places Feature elements

Feature elements are either required, encouraged, or optional. The encouraged elements will facilitate reconciliation and/or provide richer search results and record displays in World-Historical Gazetteer.

@context (required)

In JSON-LD, labels for object elements are aliases for terms formally defined in linked ontologies. For Linked Places, those mappings are listed in this context document.

e.g. "@context": "http://linkedpasts.org/assets/linkedplaces-context-v1.jsonld"

@id (required)

A unique and permanent URI pointing to the contributor's published record of the place. All place records contributed to World-Historical Gazetteer will have a minimal landing page, so it can serve as publisher for smaller projects.

e.g. "@id": "http://mygaz.org/places/p_12345"

properties{} (required)

A properties element holding at least one key:value pair is required by GeoJSON. For Linked Places format, title is required and one or more ccodes are encouraged. Properties are typically displayed in popup windows upon clicking markers in web maps.

e.g. "properties":{ "title": "Abingdon (UK)", "ccodes": ["GB"], "fclasses": ["P"]}

title (required)

A label for the record, usually a 'preferred name' from among the toponyms associated with a place. The title is necessary for ordering records in some list displays. Note that for Pelagios and World-Historical Gazetteer interfaces, place records always include all available attested name variants and spellings.

fclasses[] (required)

A set (list) of one or more single-letter codes, classifying the place type, or class:

A: Administrative entities (e.g. countries, provinces, municipalities); H: Water bodies (e.g. rivers, lakes, bays, seas); L: Regions, landscape areas (cultural, geographic, historical); P: Populated places (e.g. cities, towns, hamlets); R: Roads, routes, rail; S: Sites (e.g. archaeological sites, buildings, complexes); T: Terrestrial landforms (e.g. mountains, valleys, capes)

ccodes[] (encouraged)

A set (list) of one or more two-letter codes (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) indicating modern countries whose bounds contains or overlap the place. Invaluable for reconciliation against modern place name authority resources like Getty TGN, Wikidata, and GeoNames.

when{} (required)

A when element can be used to temporally scope a) an entire Feature; b) a name; c) a geometry (representative point or extent); d) a type; or e) a relation, i.e. an instance of a part-of relation with another place. Each Feature must include at least one when element, which can be in any of those locations.

A when element, where used, must include one or more timespan. One or more named period, referenced with a name and URI, is optional. Examples shown reference records from PeriodO and Chronontology.

A when element, wherever used, can include an optional certainty attribute, allowed values for which are one of "certain", "less-certain", or "uncertain".

A timespan must have a start; if end is omitted, the timespan is interpreted as the interval described by the start. For example, {"start":{"in":"1832"} indicates "during 1832," and {"start":{"in":"1832-08-01"} indicates "on that day."

Valid values for "in," "earliest," and "latest" are ISO 8601 expressions as described by the OWL-Time ontology.

Valid values for "duration" are strings wtih the letter 'P' followed by an integer, followed by one of Y, M, W, or D to indicate years, months, weeks, or days. E.g. P100Y indicates one century with unspecified bounds within an accompanying timespan.

The following annotated example indicates possible options:

"when": {
  "timespans": [
    { "start": { "in": "yyyy-mm" },
      "end": {
          "earliest": "-yyyy",
          "latest": "yyyy-mm-dd" }
    }
  ],
  "periods": [
    { "name": "Anglo-Saxon Period, 449-1066",
      "uri": "http://n2t.net/ark:/99152/p06c6g3whtg" }
  ],
  "label": "for a century during the Anglo-Saxon period",
  "certainty": "certain",
  "duration": "P100Y"
}

names[] (required)

A set (list) of one or more attested toponyms. At least one must have a citation. Temporal scoping with an associated 'when' element is optional, as are citations for all but the first. This allows for lists of uncited named variants. A Linked Places record must have either a record-level "when" element, or a citation year for at least one of its names. It can have both, as well as any number of "when" elements in names, geometries, types, and relations.

For example:

"names": [
  { "toponym":"Abingdon",
    "lang":"en",
    "citations": [{
      "label": "Hookland Travels (1635)",
      "year": 1635,
      "@id":"http://somearchive.org/hookland_travels"
    }],
    "when": {"timespans":[{"start":{"in":"1600"}}]}
  },
  { "toponym":"Abingdon-on-Thames", "lang":"en",
    "when": {"timespans":[{"start":{"in":"1600"}}]}
  }
],

types[ ] (encouraged*)

A set (list) of one or more place types, where "identifier" and "label" refer to a concept in a published vocabulary. This example indicates a term from the Getty Institute Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT). The "sourceLabels" attribute can be used for terms from the original source (or the contributor's internal vocabulary). [NOTE: World Historical Gazetteer has developed a subset list of 176 AAT place type concepts for use in that platform (tsv; xlsx showing hierarchy.]

*sourceLabels and when are optional

"types": [
  { "identifier": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300008375",
    "label": "town",
    "sourceLabels": [{"label":"Market Town","lang":"en"}],
    "when": {"timespans":[{"start":{"in":"1600"}}]}
  }
],

geometry{} (required)

One or more GeoJSON geometries. If only one, type can be any of Point, MultiPoint, LineString, MultiLineString, Polygon, MultiPolygon as shown. The geowkt [1], when, and certainty properties are optional.

"geometry": {
    "type": "Point",
    "coordinates": [-1.2879,51.6708],
    "geowkt": "POINT(-1.2879 51.6708)",
    "when": {"timespans":[
        {"start":{"earliest": "1600"},"end":{"in":"1699"}}
    ]},
    "certainty": "less-certain"
}

If a Feature has multiple geometries with distinct when, and/or certainty properties, its type should be GeometryCollection as shown below.

"geometry": {
  "type": "GeometryCollection",
  "geometries": [
      { "type": "Point",
        "coordinates": [-1.2879,51.6708],
        "geowkt": "POINT(-1.2879 51.6708)",
        "when": {"timespans":[
            {"start":{"earliest": "1600"},"end":{"in":"1699"}}
        ]},
        "certainty": "less-certain"
      },
      { "geowkt": "POLYGON ((-1.3077 51.6542, -1.2555 51.6542,
            -1.2555 51.6908, -1.3077 51.6908, -1.3077 51.6542))",
        "when": {"timespans":[{"start":"1700"}]},
        "certainty": "certain"
      }
  ]
}

NOTES

[1] A Well-known text (WKT) representation of geometry ("geowkt") can be supplied in place of a "coordinates" element (e.g. geometry #2 below) , but in this case the entire dataset will not validate as GeoJSON. It will however index successfully in Pelagios and World Historical Gazetteer and render in the maps of those projects.

[2] Values for the optional certainty attribute can be one of "certain", "less-certain" and "uncertain".

[3] In the event the location for a place is unknown, the geometry element's value should be null. This is compatible with the Leaflet.js, MapBox.js, and MapLibre.js libraries e.g.

"geometry": null

links[] (encouraged)

Linked Places format supports four types of linked resources, as shown here. Close matches are the principal means of linking places and gazetteer datasets and are therefore at least one of these is highly encouraged. The reconciliation service of World Historical Gazetteer can facilitate identifying closeMatch relations with place name authorities like Wikidata and the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names.

"links": [
  {"type": "closeMatch",
   "identifier": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q321381"},
  {"type": "primaryTopicOf",
   "identifier": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Abingdon-on-Thames"},
  {"type": "subjectOf",
   "identifier": "http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Camden/11#pn_3"},
  {"type": "seeAlso",
   "identifier": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86bbe_of_Coldingham"}
],

World Historical Gazetteer supports the name resources listed here; the aliases indicated (short URI prefixes) should be used in place of the URI base, e.g. wd:Q321381 in the above example.

    {"bnf": Bibliothèque nationale de France, "https://data.bnf.fr/"}
    {"cerl": Consortium of European Research Libraries, "https://data.cerl.org/thesaurus/"}
    {"dbp": DBpedia, "http://dbpedia.org/resource/"}
    {"gn": GeoNames, "http://www.geonames.org/"}
    {"gnd": Deutschen Nationalbibliothek, "http://d-nb.info/gnd/"}
    {"gov": The Geneaological Gazetteer, "http://gov.genealogy.net/" }
    {"loc": Library of Congress, "http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/"}
    {"pl": Pleiades, "https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/"}
    {"tgn": Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names, "http://vocab.getty.edu/page/tgn/"}
    {"viaf": Virtual International Authority File, "http://viaf.org/viaf/"}
    {"wd": Wikidata, "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/"}
    {"wp": Wikipedia, "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/"}

relations[] (optional)

A set (list) of one or more attestation of relation. The relationType property must be de-referenceable to an existing vocabulary or ontology. E.g., in the Getty Vocabulary Ontology, broaderPartitive relations are used to represent 'parents' in an administrative hierarchy; tgn3317_member_of and tgn3318_member_is relations can be used to represent political unions, empires, and regions. In this example Abingdon is shown as having been an administrative part of two counties over time; also, using the generic tgn3000_related_to, as having been linked by canal to Semington.

• Values for the optional certainty attribute can be one of "certain", "less-certain" and "uncertain".

"relations": [
  { "relationType": "gvp:broaderPartitive",
    "relationTo": "mygaz:places/p_9876",
    "label": "part of Berkshire (UK)",
    "when": {"timespans":[
      {"start":{"in":"1600"},"end":{"in":"1974"}}
    ]}
  },
  { "relationType": "gvp:broaderPartitive",
    "relationTo": "mygaz:places/p_3456",
    "label": "part of Oxfordshire (UK)",
    "when": {"timespans":[{"start":{"in":"1974"}}]}
  },
  { "relationType": "gvp:tgn3000_related_to",
    "relationTo": "http://mygaz.org/places/p_98765",
    "label": "Linked to Semington by Kennet and Avon Canal",
    "when":{"timespans":[{"start":{"in":"1790"}}]},
    "citations": [{
      "label": "Harrumph (1923)",
      "year": 1923,
      "@id": "doi:10.1109/5.771073"
    }],
    "certainty": "certain"
  }
]

descriptions[] (encouraged)

A set (list) of one or more brief descriptions.

e.g.

"descriptions": [
  {
    "value": "...a historic market town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England",
    "lang": "en",
    "source": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abingdon-on-Thames"
  }
]

depictions[] (optional)

A set (list) of one or more images of some part or aspect of the place.

"depictions": [
  {
    "@id": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ThamesAtAbingdon.jpg",
    "title": "The River Thames at Abingdon, Oxfordshire",
    "license": "cc:by-sa/3.0/"
  }
]