Data Types

The Open Civic Data specifications define the following core types:

division

A political geography such as a state, county, or congressional district. May have multiple boundaries over their lifetime.

Division IDs take the form ocd-division/country:<country_code>[<type>:type_id>]+. The canonical repository of division IDs is opencivicdata/ocd-division-ids You can also look up a division id using the Open Civic Data editor and lookup tool.

See Division Objects for details.

jurisdiction

A governing body that exists within a division. While ‘Florida’ would be a division, the Florida State Legislature would be a jurisdiction.

Jurisdictions IDs take the form ocd-jurisdiction/<jurisdiction_id>/<jurisdiction_type> where jurisdiction_id is the ID for the related division without the ocd-division/ prefix and jurisdiction_type is council, legislature, etc.

See Jurisdiction Objects for details.

person

A person, typically a politician or government official.

The Popolo person schema is used to represent person data.

See Person Objects for details.

organization

A group of people, such as a city council, state senate, or committee.

The Popolo organization schema is used to represent organization data.

See Organization Objects for details.

bill

A legislative document and its history, may technically be a resolution, appointment, or contract so long as it has a name and would be considered to have a legislative history.

See Bill Objects for details.

vote

The record of a vote taken on a motion, such as a confirmation or passage of a bill. May contain individual legislator’s yay/nay votes or just an outcome.

See Vote Objects for details.

event

A legislative event, such as a meeting or hearing.

See Event Objects for details.