Wikipedia / MediaWiki SPARQL API

openapi: 3.0.3
info:
  title: MediaWiki Action articles SPARQL API
  description: 'The MediaWiki Action API is the original programmatic interface to MediaWiki, exposed under /w/api.php on every MediaWiki installation. All operations dispatch via the ?action= query parameter. The API supports JSON, XML, and PHP serialization; JSON is the recommended format.


    Wikimedia projects strongly recommend serial (not parallel) calls, the use of maxlag for non-interactive jobs, and a contactable User-Agent header. The Action API remains the primary write interface (edit, upload, login, patrol) even where the Core REST API is also available.'
  version: '1.45'
  x-generated-from: documentation
  x-source-url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page
  x-last-validated: '2026-05-29'
  contact:
    name: Wikimedia Foundation
    url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Etiquette
  license:
    name: CC BY-SA 4.0
    url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
servers:
- url: https://en.wikipedia.org/w
  description: English Wikipedia
- url: https://{lang}.wikipedia.org/w
  description: Per-language Wikipedia
  variables:
    lang:
      default: en
      description: Language code
- url: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w
  description: Wikimedia Commons
- url: https://www.wikidata.org/w
  description: Wikidata
- url: https://www.mediawiki.org/w
  description: MediaWiki.org
tags:
- name: SPARQL
  description: SPARQL 1.1 query endpoint
paths:
  /sparql:
    get:
      operationId: executeSparqlQueryGet
      summary: Wikidata Query Service SPARQL Execute a SPARQL Query (GET)
      description: Execute a SPARQL 1.1 SELECT/ASK/CONSTRUCT/DESCRIBE query against the Wikidata graph. Pass the query in the 'query' parameter. Use Accept header to control result format (JSON, XML, CSV, TSV, RDF/XML, Turtle).
      tags:
      - SPARQL
      parameters:
      - name: query
        in: query
        required: true
        schema:
          type: string
        description: SPARQL query text
        example: SELECT ?item ?itemLabel WHERE { ?item wdt:P31 wd:Q146 . SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en" } } LIMIT 10
      - name: format
        in: query
        schema:
          type: string
          enum:
          - json
          - xml
        description: Optional inline format override
      - name: Accept
        in: header
        schema:
          type: string
          enum:
          - application/sparql-results+json
          - application/sparql-results+xml
          - text/csv
          - text/tab-separated-values
          - application/rdf+xml
          - text/turtle
        description: Result format
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Query result
          content:
            application/sparql-results+json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/SparqlResults'
            application/sparql-results+xml:
              schema:
                type: string
            text/csv:
              schema:
                type: string
            text/tab-separated-values:
              schema:
                type: string
        '400':
          description: Malformed query
        '500':
          description: Query execution failed
        '503':
          description: Query exceeded the 60s budget
      x-microcks-operation:
        delay: 0
        dispatcher: FALLBACK
    post:
      operationId: executeSparqlQueryPost
      summary: Wikidata Query Service SPARQL Execute a SPARQL Query (POST)
      description: Submit a SPARQL query in the request body. Useful when the query is too long for a URL.
      tags:
      - SPARQL
      requestBody:
        required: true
        content:
          application/sparql-query:
            schema:
              type: string
              description: SPARQL query text
          application/x-www-form-urlencoded:
            schema:
              type: object
              required:
              - query
              properties:
                query:
                  type: string
                  description: SPARQL query text
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Query result
          content:
            application/sparql-results+json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/SparqlResults'
        '400':
          description: Malformed query
        '503':
          description: Query timeout
      x-microcks-operation:
        delay: 0
        dispatcher: FALLBACK
components:
  schemas:
    SparqlResults:
      type: object
      description: SPARQL 1.1 JSON results format (W3C).
      properties:
        head:
          type: object
          properties:
            vars:
              type: array
              items:
                type: string
              example:
              - item
              - itemLabel
        results:
          type: object
          properties:
            bindings:
              type: array
              items:
                type: object
                additionalProperties:
                  type: object
                  properties:
                    type:
                      type: string
                      enum:
                      - uri
                      - literal
                      - bnode
                      - typed-literal
                      example: uri
                    value:
                      type: string
                      example: http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q146
                    datatype:
                      type: string
                      nullable: true
                    xml:lang:
                      type: string
                      nullable: true
        boolean:
          type: boolean
          description: Result of an ASK query
          nullable: true
  securitySchemes:
    BearerAuth:
      type: http
      scheme: bearer
      description: OAuth 2.0 bearer token from meta.wikimedia.org
    CookieAuth:
      type: apiKey
      in: cookie
      name: '{wiki}wikiUserID'
      description: Session cookie obtained via action=login or action=clientlogin