RDF Schema

Please check the errata for any errors or issues reported since publication. This document is also available in this non-normative format: diff w.r.t. 2004 Recommendation The English version of this specification is the only normative version. Non-normative translations may also be available. RDF Schema provides a data-modelling vocabulary for RDF data. RDF Schema is an extension of the basic RDF vocabulary. This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at This document is an edited version of the 2004 RDF Schema Recommendation. The purpose of this revision is to make this document available as part of the RDF 1.1 document set. Changes are limited to errata, revised references, terminology updates, and adaptations to the introduction. The title of the document was changed from "RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema" to "RDF Schema 1.1". The technical content of the document is unchanged. Details of the changes are listed in the Changes section. Since the edits to this document do not constitute a technical change the Director decided no new implementation report was required. This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy . W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy . RDF Schema provides a data-modelling vocabulary for RDF data. It is complemented by several companion documents which describe the basic concepts and abstract syntax of RDF [RDF11-CONCEPTS ], the formal semantics of RDF [RDF11-MT ], and various concrete syntaxes for RDF, such as Turtle [TURTLE ], TriG, [TRIG ], and JSON-LD [JSON-LD ]. The RDF Primer [RDF11-PRIMER ] provides an informal introduction and examples of the use of the concepts specified in this document. This document is intended to provide a clear specification of RDF Schema to those who find the formal semantics specification [RDF11-MT ] daunting. Thus, this document duplicates material also specified in the RDF Semantics specification. Where there is disagreement between this document and the RDF Semantics specification, the RDF Semantics specification should be taken to be correct. RDF Schema is a semantic extension of RDF. It provides mechanisms for describing groups of related resources and the relationships between these resources. RDF Schema is written in RDF using the terms described in this document. These resources are used to determine characteristics of other resources, such as the domains and ranges of properties. This specification does not attempt to enumerate all the possible forms of representing the meaning of RDF classes and properties. Instead, the RDF Schema strategy is to acknowledge that there are many techniques through which the meaning of classes and properties can be described. Richer vocabulary or 'ontology' languages such as OWL [OWL2-OVERVIEW ], inference rule languages and other formalisms (for example temporal logics) will each contribute to our ability to capture meaningful generalizations about data in the Web. and is conventionally associated with the prefix rdfs: . This specification also uses the prefix rdf: to refer to the RDF namespace For convenience and readability, this specification uses an abbreviated form to represent IRIs. A name of the form prefix:suffix should be interpreted as a IRI consisting of the IRI associated with the prefix concatenated with the suffix. RDF distinguishes between a class and the set of its instances. Associated with each class is a set