Help:Contributing/entities

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This page explains the data model and how to create and edit items and properties. Start at the Help:Contributing hub if you are new here.

The data model in five minutes

Wikibase is the software behind Wikidata. Two entity types exist on this instance:

Entity ID URL form Example
Item Q1, Q2, … /wiki/Item:Q1 a book, a person, a place
Property P1, P2, … /wiki/Property:P1 "instance of", "date"

Each entity has:

  • Terms: a multilingual label (unique per language per type), a description, and optional aliases.
  • Statements: a property → value pair, optionally with qualifiers (details) and references (provenance), and a rank (preferred, normal, deprecated).

Order of work: define properties first (the schema), then create items (the data).

Before you create anything

  1. Search first — use the search box or Special:Search; do not create a duplicate item or property.
  2. Reuse existing properties — browse Special:ListProperties (sidebar → Semantic tools → Browse properties) before proposing a new one. A property is expensive: its datatype is permanent.
  3. Labels are unique per language — an item cannot have two labels in the same language. Use the description to disambiguate.

Creating a property

  1. Go to Special:NewProperty (also in the sidebar → Semantic tools → Create new property).
  2. Fill in at least a label (for example instance of) and a description (for example that class of which this subject is a particular example and member). Add aliases (for example is-a, isa).
  3. Choose the datatype — the most important decision, and it cannot be changed after creation:
Datatype Use for Example value
Item link to another entity Q5 (a person)
Property link to another property P1
String free text "ISBN-13"
External identifier identifier in another system Q1234 → https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1234
URL web address https://example.org
Monolingual text text with a language tag "hello"@en
Quantity numbers with units 3 (unit Q11573, kg)
Time dates 2026-08-15T00:00:00Z
Globe coordinate latitude and longitude 48.85N 2.35E
Commons media a file name File:Foo.jpg

The dropdown in Special:NewProperty shows the full set of datatypes available here.

For External identifier, also set the formatter URL (formatter-url field), for example https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/$1 — it makes values dereferenceable URIs in RDF.

Save: the property gets its permanent ID (P1, P2, …). Other editors can now use it in statements.

Creating an item

  1. Go to Special:NewItem (also in the sidebar → Semantic tools → Create new item).
  2. Fill in a label (English at minimum — en; other languages welcome), a description, and optional aliases.
  3. Save: the item gets its permanent ID (Q1, Q2, …).
  4. Add statements (next section). An item with no statements is just a stub.

Adding and editing statements

On an item page (Special:EntityPage/Q1):

  1. Click + add statement (or + add value for more values of one property).
  2. Property: start typing P1 or its label — autocomplete.
  3. Value: depends on the datatype (item → start typing another entity's label).
  4. Qualifiers (optional): refine the statement, for example the date property (P8) on population → 2.1 million.
  5. References (recommended for facts — this is the provenance layer): Add reference, for example the source URL property (P7) for a web source, source (P28) for a book or article, or date (P8) if the fact itself has a date. Every fact should say where it comes from.
  6. Rank: mark conflicting or outdated values as deprecated, the best value as preferred.

Editing tips:

  • Statement values are editable by clicking them; remove a statement with the ✕ control.
  • Terms (label, description, aliases) are edited directly in the entity header — click the pencil icon and choose the language tab.
  • Undo or roll back via the page history tab — every change is a wiki revision.

Deleting and merging

Merge two duplicate items: use merge on the item page (right: item-merge, granted to registered users).

Delete an entity page: Special:DeletePage (Item:Q12) — admins only. Deleting a property is rare and breaks the statements that use it — prefer deprecating it instead.

See also

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