science

Geopolitical ontology

Geopolitical ontology is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Geopolitical ontology rather than just read about it. In short: The FAO geopolitical ontology is an ontology developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to describe, manage and exchange data related to geopolitical entities such as countries, territories, regions and other similar areas. Definitions and examples An ontology is a kind of dictionary that describes information in a certain domain using concepts and relationships.

Key takeaways

Geopolitical ontology belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Geopolitical ontology to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Geopolitical ontology from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The FAO geopolitical ontology is an ontology developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to describe, manage and exchange data related to geopolitical entities such as countries, territories, regions and other similar areas.

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 and 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 and 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 and 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.

FAO ontology The geopolitical ontology provides names in seven languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, English, Spanish, Russian and Italian) and identifiers in various international coding systems (ISO2, ISO3, AGROVOC, FAOSTAT, FAOTERM, GAUL, UN, UNDP and DBPediaID codes) for territories and groups. Moreover, the FAO geopolitical ontology tracks historical changes from 1985 up until today; provides geolocation (geographical coordinates); implements relationships among countries and countries, or countries and groups, including properties such as has border with, is predecessor of, is successor of, is administered by, has members, and is in group; and disseminates country statistics including country area, land area, agricultural area, GDP or population. The FAO geopolitical ontology provides a structured description of data sources. This includes: source name, source identifier, source creator and source's update date. Concepts are described using the Dublin Core vocabulary In summary, the main objectives of the FAO geopolitical ontology are:

To provide the most updated geopolitical information (names, codes, relationships, statistics) To track historical changes in geopolitical information To improve information management and facilitate standardized data sharing of geopolitical information To demonstrate the benefits of the geopolitical ontology to improve interoperability of corporate information systems It is possible to download the FAO geopolitical ontology in OWL and RDF formats. Documentation is available in the FAO Country Profiles Geopolitical information web page.

Features of the FAO ontology The geopolitical ontology contains :

Area types: Territories: self-governing, non-self-governing, disputed, other. Groups: organizations, geographic, economic and special groups. Names (official, short and names for lists) in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Russian and Italian. International codes: UN code – M49, ISO 3166 Alpha-2 and Alpha-3, UNDP code, GAUL code, FAOSTAT, AGROVOC FAOTERM and DBPediaID. Coordinates: maximum latitude, minimum latitude, maximum longitude, minimum longitude. Basic country statistics: country area, land area, agricultural area, GDP, population. Currency names and codes. Adjectives of nationality. Relations: Groups membership. Neighbours (land border), administration of non-self-governing. Historic changes: predecessor, successor, valid since, valid until.

Implementation into OWL The FAO geopolitical ontology is implemented in OWL. It consists of classes, properties, individuals and restrictions. Table 1 shows all classes, gives a brief description and lists some individuals that belong to each class. Note that the current version of the geopolitical ontology does not provide individuals of the class "disputed" territories. Table 2 and Table 3 illustrate datatype properties and object properties.

Geopolitical ontology in Linked Open Data The FAO Geopolitical ontology is embracing the W3C Linked Open Data (LOD) initiative and released its RDF version of the geopolitical ontology in March 2011. The term 'Linked Open Data' refers to a set of best practices for publishing and connecting structured data on the Web. The key technologies that support Linked Data are URIs, HTTP and RDF. The RDF version of the geopolitical ontology is compliant with all Linked data principles to be included in the Linked Open Data cloud, as explained in the following.

Resolvable http:// URIs Every resource in the OWL format of the FAO Geopolitical Ontology has a unique URI. Dereferenciation was implemented to allow for three different URIs to be assigned to each resource as follows:

URI identifying the non-information resource Information resource with an RDF/XML representation Information resource with an HTML representation In addition the current URIs used for OWL format needed to be kept to allow for backwards compatibility for other systems that are using them. Therefore, the new URIs for the FAO Geopolitical Ontology in LOD were carefully created, using “Cool URIs for Semantic Web” and considering other good practices for URIs, such as DBpedia URIs.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Geopolitical ontology

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Geopolitical ontology claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Geopolitical ontology before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Geopolitical ontology ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Geopolitical ontology

In research: Geopolitical ontology appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Geopolitical ontology in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Geopolitical ontology is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Country codes, Geographic data and information, Knowledge representation, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Geopolitical ontology outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Geopolitical ontology in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Geopolitical ontology means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Geopolitical ontology out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Geopolitical ontology in simple terms?

Why does Geopolitical ontology matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Geopolitical ontology?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Geopolitical ontology.