Geopolitical Ontology - Definitions and Examples

Definitions and Examples

An Ontology is a kind of dictionary that describes information in a certain domain using concepts and relationships. It is often implemented using OWL (Web Ontology Language), an XML-based standard language that can be interpreted by computers.

• A Concept is defined as abstract knowledge. For example, in the geopolitical ontology a non-self-governing territory or a geographical group are concepts. Concepts are explicitly implemented in the ontology with individuals and classes:
  • An individual is defined as an object perceived from the real world. In the geopolitical domain Ethiopia or the least developed countries group are individuals.
  • A class is defined as a set of individuals sharing common properties. In the geopolitical domain, Ethiopia, Republic of Korea or Italy are individuals of the class self-governing territory; and least developed countries is an individual of the class special group.

• Relationships between concepts are explicitly implemented by:
  • Object properties between individuals of two classes. For example, has member and is in group properties, as shown in Figure 1.
  • Datatype properties between individuals and literals or XML datatypes. For example, the individual Afghanistan has the datatype property CodeISO3 with the value "AFG".
  • Restrictions in classes and/or properties. For example, the property official English name of the class self-governing territory has been restricted to have only one value, this means that a self-governing territory (or country) can only have one internationally recognized official English name.

The advantage of describing information in an ontology is that it enables to acquire domain knowledge by defining hierarchical structures of classes, adding individuals, setting object properties and datatype properties, and assigning restrictions.