Cheatsheets:SPARQL

Quick reference for smart people — part of our dev cheatsheets collection.

SPARQL 1.1 quick syntax reference — for people who already know what SPARQL is and need reminders on syntax. All examples run as-is against the public Wikidata endpoint https://query.wikidata.org/sparql. For a proper tutorial, take the Wikidata SPARQL tutorial. For querying a different Wikibase instance (endpoint, prefixes, label service), see Help:Contributing/query.

Query forms

Form	Returns	Use when
SELECT	table of variable bindings	you want rows of data
ASK	true/false	you only need to know whether something exists
CONSTRUCT	an RDF graph (triples)	you want the result as RDF, not a table
DESCRIBE	a graph describing the resource	you want everything known about an entity

SELECT — what is the population of France?

SELECT ?population WHERE {
  wd:Q142 wdt:P1082 ?population .
}

Result: 68605616

ASK — is there at least one dog in Wikidata?

ASK WHERE { ?x wdt:P31 wd:Q144 . }

Result: true

CONSTRUCT — every dog as RDF (first two)

CONSTRUCT { ?x wdt:P31 wd:Q144 . }
WHERE { ?x wdt:P31 wd:Q144 . } LIMIT 2

Result: RDF/XML graph with rdf:Description nodes (e.g. rdf:about="…/Q186486")

DESCRIBE — everything known about Einstein

DESCRIBE wd:Q937

Result: RDF/XML graph of all triples about wd:Q937

Triple patterns & literals

A triple pattern is subject predicate object . — each part may be a variable, an IRI, or a literal.

# ?population is a variable, wd:Q142 and wdt:P1082 are IRIs
wd:Q142 wdt:P1082 ?population .

# A literal with a language tag — "dog"@en:
SELECT ?label WHERE {
  wd:Q144 rdfs:label ?label .
  FILTER(LANG(?label) = "en")
}

Result: dog (a literal tagged @en)

Literals can carry datatypes or language tags: "42"^^xsd:integer, "2026-08-19"^^xsd:date, "dog"@en, "chien"@fr.

A blank node

[]

means "some unnamed thing".

Solution modifiers

DISTINCT — drop duplicate rows. Einstein and Obama are both male; without DISTINCT you get two identical rows:

SELECT ?genderLabel WHERE {
  VALUES ?person { wd:Q937 wd:Q76 }
  ?person wdt:P21 ?gender .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}

Result: male, male (2 rows) — add DISTINCT and you get one row: male

ORDER BY + LIMIT — the 3 most populous countries:

SELECT ?countryLabel ?population WHERE {
  ?country wdt:P31 wd:Q6256 .              # instance of: sovereign state
  ?country wdt:P1082 ?population .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}
ORDER BY DESC(?population)
LIMIT 3

Result: China 1404890000 · India 1326093247 · United States 340110988

OFFSET — page: the 2nd most populous country (skip 1):

SELECT ?countryLabel ?population WHERE {
  ?country wdt:P31 wd:Q6256 .
  ?country wdt:P1082 ?population .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}
ORDER BY DESC(?population)
LIMIT 1 OFFSET 1

Result: India 1326093247

GROUP BY — aggregates per group (see Aggregates; the running example below uses it).

FILTER

Category	Operators / functions
comparison	= < > <= >= !=
logical	&& || !
string	STR() CONTAINS() STRSTARTS() STRENDS() REGEX()
numeric	ABS() ROUND() FLOOR() CEIL()
date/time	YEAR() MONTH() DAY() NOW()
term tests	isIRI() isBlank() isLiteral() LANG() DATATYPE()

comparison — countries with more than 1 billion people:

SELECT ?countryLabel ?population WHERE {
  ?country wdt:P31 wd:Q6256 .
  ?country wdt:P1082 ?population .
  FILTER(?population > 1000000000)
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}

Result: China 1404890000 · India 1326093247

logical (AND) — countries with 300M–500M people:

SELECT ?countryLabel ?population WHERE {
  ?country wdt:P31 wd:Q6256 .
  ?country wdt:P1082 ?population .
  FILTER(?population > 300000000 && ?population < 500000000)
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}

Result: United States 340110988

string (STRSTARTS) — countries whose English label starts with "S":

SELECT ?countryLabel WHERE {
  ?country wdt:P31 wd:Q6256 .
  ?country rdfs:label ?countryLabel .
  FILTER(LANG(?countryLabel) = "en" && STRSTARTS(?countryLabel, "S"))
}
LIMIT 3

Result: Saint Kitts and Nevis · Somaliland · Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

numeric (ROUND) — France's population in millions, rounded:

SELECT ?millions (ROUND(?millions) AS ?rounded) WHERE {
  wd:Q142 wdt:P1082 ?population .
  BIND(?population / 1000000 AS ?millions)
}

Result: 68.605616 · 69

date/time (YEAR) — Einstein's birth year:

SELECT ?personLabel (YEAR(?birth) AS ?year) WHERE {
  wd:Q937 wdt:P569 ?birth .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}

Result: Albert Einstein · 1879

term test (isIRI) — values of wdt:P31 on a dog are IRIs (entities), not literals:

SELECT ?o WHERE {
  wd:Q144 wdt:P31 ?o .
  FILTER(isIRI(?o))
}

Result: http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q55983715 …

VALUES & BIND

# Restrict ?animal to a fixed list
VALUES ?animal { wd:Q144 wd:Q146 }          # dog, cat

# Compute a new variable from existing ones
BIND(?population / 1000000 AS ?millions)

Used together in the running example below.

Running example: dogs and cats

SELECT ?animal ?animalLabel (COUNT(?item) AS ?count) WHERE {
  VALUES ?animal { wd:Q144 wd:Q146 }        # dog, cat
  ?item wdt:P31 ?animal .                   # ?item is an instance of ?animal
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}
GROUP BY ?animal ?animalLabel

Animal	Count
dog	553
cat	239

OPTIONAL, UNION, MINUS

Keyword	Meaning
OPTIONAL	left join: keep the row, leave the variable unbound when absent
UNION	alternatives (the default between patterns is AND, not OR)
MINUS	remove rows that match the pattern

OPTIONAL — Einstein (died 1955) vs Obama (alive); ?deathLabel is unbound for Obama:

SELECT ?personLabel ?deathLabel WHERE {
  VALUES ?person { wd:Q937 wd:Q76 }         # Einstein, Barack Obama
  OPTIONAL { ?person wdt:P570 ?death . }
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}

Result: Albert Einstein · 1955-04-18 · Barack Obama · (no death row)

MINUS — Nobel laureates minus the French ones:

SELECT ?personLabel WHERE {
  ?person wdt:P166 wd:Q7191 .
  MINUS { ?person wdt:P27 wd:Q142 . }
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}
LIMIT 3

Result: three non-French Nobel laureates (e.g. Adam Bernau · Santiago Carril …)

UNION — dogs AND cats in one result set:

SELECT ?animalLabel (COUNT(?item) AS ?n) WHERE {
  { ?item wdt:P31 wd:Q144 . BIND("dog" AS ?animalLabel) }
  UNION
  { ?item wdt:P31 wd:Q146 . BIND("cat" AS ?animalLabel) }
}
GROUP BY ?animalLabel

Result: dog 553 · cat 239

Property paths

Path	Meaning
wdt:P40/wdt:P40	two hops (sequence)
wdt:P40+	one or more hops
wdt:P40*	zero or more hops
wdt:P40?	zero or one hop
wdt:P41	either property
^wdt:P40	inverse direction
!wdt:P40	any property except P40

wdt:P31/wdt:P279* — named dogs, including breeds and other subclasses ("instance of something that is a dog or a subclass of dog"):

SELECT ?thing ?thingLabel WHERE {
  ?thing wdt:P31/wdt:P279* wd:Q144 .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}
LIMIT 3

Result: Theo · Tich · Tickle Em Jock

Aggregates

COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX, SAMPLE (pick one arbitrary value), GROUP_CONCAT.

HAVING — species with more than 400 direct instances (the running example, filtered):

SELECT ?animalLabel (COUNT(?item) AS ?n) WHERE {
  VALUES ?animal { wd:Q144 wd:Q146 }
  ?item wdt:P31 ?animal .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}
GROUP BY ?animal ?animalLabel
HAVING (COUNT(?item) > 400)

Result: dog 553 (cat 239 filtered out)

GROUP_CONCAT — Einstein's awards in one cell:

SELECT ?personLabel (GROUP_CONCAT(?awardLabel; SEPARATOR=", ") AS ?awards) WHERE {
  VALUES ?person { wd:Q937 }
  ?person wdt:P166 ?award .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}
GROUP BY ?personLabel

Result: Albert Einstein · "Nobel Prize in Physics, …" (one cell)

Subqueries

A query inside a query — useful for "the X with the max Y" patterns.

The most populous country, computed via a subquery:

SELECT ?countryLabel ?max WHERE {
  {
    SELECT (MAX(?population) AS ?max) WHERE {
      ?c wdt:P31 wd:Q6256 .
      ?c wdt:P1082 ?population .
    }
  }
  ?country wdt:P31 wd:Q6256 .
  ?country wdt:P1082 ?max .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}

Result: China 1404890000

SERVICE (labels, federation)

The label service turns entity IDs into human-readable labels — used in most queries above:

SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
# then reference ?xLabel for every ?x in the query

# Federating to another endpoint (needs the remote's own IRIs, e.g. via owl:sameAs)
SELECT ?cityLabel WHERE {
  wd:Q64 wdt:P36 ?city .
  ?city owl:sameAs ?dbpediaCity .
  SERVICE <https://dbpedia.org/sparql> {
    ?dbpediaCity rdfs:label ?cityLabel .
    FILTER(LANG(?cityLabel) = "en")
  }
}

Common tasks

• Count rows: SELECT (COUNT(*) AS ?n) WHERE { … }
• Check existence: ASK WHERE { … }
• Deduplicate: add DISTINCT
• Reverse a relation: ?child ^wdt:P40 ?parent
• Page through results: LIMIT 100 OFFSET 100
• JSON output: append &format=json to the endpoint URL

Gotchas

• The default between triple patterns is AND (join) — use UNION for alternatives.
• An unbound variable in FILTER makes the row fail (unbound ≠ false) — guard with BOUND() or restructure with OPTIONAL.
• Variables used only inside a property path (e.g. ?s wdt:P40/wdt:P40 ?o) cannot be selected.
• Blank-node labels (_:x) are local to one query — they are not IRIs.
• Aggregates need GROUP BY for every non-aggregated variable; forgetting one mixes unrelated rows.
• FILTER NOT EXISTS differs from MINUS when variables are unbound — prefer MINUS for set-difference semantics.
• Endpoint prefixes are not universal — wd:/wdt: are Wikidata's; other instances define their own (see Help:Contributing/query).

Further reading

• Wikidata SPARQL tutorial — the recommended tutorial
• SPARQL 1.1 Query Language — official spec
• Wikidata Query Service — the example endpoint used here
• Help:Contributing/query — querying a different instance (endpoint, prefixes, label service)