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.

Running example

How many dogs and cats are in Wikidata? (returns: dog 553, cat 239)

# wd: = entity (Q…), wdt: = property value (P…), SERVICE = label lookup
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

| Result || | dog || 553 |- | cat || 239

Query forms

Form	Returns	Use when
SELECT	table of variable bindings	you want rows of data (the rest of this sheet)
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

# Is there at least one dog in Wikidata?
ASK WHERE { ?x wdt:P31 wd:Q144 . }          # → true

# Every dog as an RDF graph (first two)
CONSTRUCT { ?x wdt:P31 wd:Q144 . }
WHERE { ?x wdt:P31 wd:Q144 . } LIMIT 2

Triple patterns & literals

A triple pattern is subject predicate object . — each part may be a variable (?x), an IRI

(

wd:Q144

), or a literal.

# What is the population of France? (→ 68,605,616)
SELECT ?population WHERE {
  wd:Q142 wdt:P1082 ?population .
}

# 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":
#   wd:Q144 wdt:depicted-by [] .     # dog depicted by something

Solution modifiers

Clause	What it does
DISTINCT	drop duplicate rows
ORDER BY	sort (ASC(?) / DESC(?))
LIMIT n	at most n rows
OFFSET n	skip n rows (paging)
GROUP BY	group rows for aggregation (see Aggregates)

# The 3 most populous countries (ORDER BY + LIMIT)
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 1,404,890,000 · India 1,326,093,247 · United States 340,110,988

FILTER

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

# Countries with more than 1 billion people (→ China, India)
SELECT ?countryLabel ?population WHERE {
  ?country wdt:P31 wd:Q6256 .
  ?country wdt:P1082 ?population .
  FILTER(?population > 1000000000)
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}

# France's population in millions (FILTER + BIND arithmetic)
SELECT ?population ?millions WHERE {
  wd:Q142 wdt:P1082 ?population .
  BIND(?population / 1000000 AS ?millions)
}                                          # → 68.605616

VALUES & BIND

# Restrict ?animal to a fixed list (see the running example)
VALUES ?animal { wd:Q144 wd:Q146 }

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

OPTIONAL, UNION, MINUS

• 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

# Einstein (died 1955) vs Obama (alive): OPTIONAL leaves ?deathLabel unbound
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". }
}
# → Albert Einstein  1955-04-18
# → Barack Obama     (no death row)

# Nobel laureates minus the French ones (MINUS)
SELECT ?personLabel WHERE {
  ?person wdt:P166 wd:Q7191 .
  MINUS { ?person wdt:P27 wd:Q142 . }
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
}
LIMIT 3

# Dogs AND cats in one result set (UNION + DISTINCT + GROUP BY)
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

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:P40|wdt:P41	either property
^wdt:P40	inverse direction
!wdt:P40	any property except P40

# Named dogs, including breeds and other subclasses of dog
# (wdt:P31/wdt:P279* = "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.

# Species with more than 400 direct instances (the running example with HAVING)
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)                # → only dog: 553

# Collect labels into 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

Subqueries

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

# The most populous country, computed via a subquery (→ China)
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". }
}

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
  

  ≠

  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)