lo48576 / json-ld.org

JSON for Linked Data

Introduction

JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linking Data) is a lightweight Linked Data format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on the already successful JSON format and provides a way to help JSON data interoperate at Web-scale. If you are already familiar with JSON, writing JSON-LD is very easy. There is a smooth migration path from the JSON you use today, to the JSON-LD you will use in the future. These properties make JSON-LD an ideal Linked Data interchange language for JavaScript environments, Web services, and unstructured databases such as CouchDB and MongoDB.

If you are already using JSON-LD, add yourself to the list of users in our wiki.

A Simple Example

A simple example of a JSON object with added semantics:

{
  "@context": "https://json-ld.org/contexts/person.jsonld",
  "@id": "http://dbpedia.org/resource/John_Lennon",
  "name": "John Lennon",
  "born": "1940-10-09",
  "spouse": "http://dbpedia.org/resource/Cynthia_Lennon"
}

The example above describes a person whose name is John Lennon. The difference between regular JSON and JSON-LD is that the JSON-LD object above uniquely identifies itself on the Web and can be used, without introducing ambiguity, across every Web site, Web services and databases in operation today.

The Playground

If you would like to play around with JSON-LD markup, you may do so here:

https://json-ld.org/playground/

The Specification

If you are a developer, you may be interested in the official JSON-LD W3C specifications:

• JSON-LD 1.0 - A JSON-based Serialization for Linked Data
• JSON-LD 1.0 Processing Algorithms and API

A list of all previous specification drafts is also available.

https://json-ld.org/spec/