How the search function works

The EU Open Data Portal is a catalogue of metadata that describes a collection of datasets stored on data providers’ websites.

Each dataset is made up of metadata and resources.

Metadata is useful information about the dataset, such as the department responsible for the data, the period covered, the terms of use, etc.

Resources are the data collections in the dataset.
 
A resource may link to:

• a file (for example a CSV spreadsheet or RDF files)
• an application programming interface (API), such as a SPARQL endpoint
• another online data resource.

You will find different resource types on the portal, such as:

• documentation
• web pages
• applications
• data files
• file transfer protocol access
• ontologies.

In the EU Open Data Portal you will also find a list of applications that reuse EU open data, with its own search function.

A catalogue of EU data visualisations will also soon be available.

Browsing datasets and resources

You have four options:

• use the search field on any data page — read more about how to search;
• use the web service (REST API) that lets you build applications using data from the portal — find out more about REST API;
• use the SPARQL endpoint that provides direct access to the triplestore containing the metadata for the datasets in RDF — find out more about SPARQL;
• browse datasets by publisher, theme, or group.