1.1.1.8. Data Formats In and Out

v4.0-beta

Note

Part of the Draft v4 User Guide: under review during beta testing.

WHG accepts and provides data in several formats. Which one to use depends on how rich your data is.

1.1.1.8.1. Spreadsheets and lists

Map your Data reads CSV and TSV, Excel, JSON, GeoJSON, and Google Sheets. It can also pick place names out of free text. It is the easiest way to start: bring a table, match it to WHG, enrich it, and export it again. See Map your Data.

1.1.1.8.2. Linked Places Format (LPF)

The Linked Places Format is the established GeoJSON-LD interchange format for historical place data. It was developed with the Pelagios community and is used by many gazetteer projects.

  • WHG accepts LPF contributions, and exports place data as LPF.

  • LPF remains fully supported in v4. Work towards the next version of LPF is coordinated by the Institute for Spatial History Innovation (ISHI) at the University of Pittsburgh and the Pelagios Place Working Group, and is recorded in the LPF repository.

LPF describes each place as a single object. That suits most gazetteers well.

1.1.1.8.3. PLATO

PLATO, the Place Attestation Ontology, is the formal expression of WHG’s data model. It suits richer data: where several sources make different claims about one place, each with its own dates, certainty and citation, and where you want to keep them apart rather than flatten them into one record.

  • PLATO has a JSON form and an RDF form, and converts between them without loss.

  • LPF is PLATO’s single-object profile, so LPF data is valid PLATO. The two are designed to coexist, and neither replaces the other.

  • The PLATO tools check and convert PLATO data in your browser.

1.1.1.8.4. Linked Data

Because PLATO is defined in RDF, WHG’s data can be published as Linked Data and queried with standard tools. Individual records are already available as JSON-LD through their identifiers (see Identifiers and citation).

1.1.1.8.5. Which should I use?

Your data

Suggested format

A list or table of place names

Map your Data (CSV, Excel, Google Sheet)

A gazetteer with one description per place

LPF

Several sources’ claims per place, kept apart with their own dates and citations

PLATO