GET /w/api.php?action=wbsearchentities

wikidata.org:wikidata-api

Summary: Search Wikidata entities
Operation ID: wbSearchEntities
Auth: unknown
Description

Searches for entities using labels and aliases. Returns matching entities with basic information.

Parameters (7)

action (string, query, required)

Must be 'wbsearchentities'

Constraints: {'enum': ['wbsearchentities']}

continue (integer, query, optional)

Offset for pagination

Constraints: {'minimum': 0}

format (string, query, optional, default: json)

Output format

Constraints: {'enum': ['json', 'jsonfm', 'xml', 'xmlfm']}

language (string, query, required)

Language code to search in (e.g., en, de, fr)

limit (integer, query, optional, default: 7)

Maximum number of results to return (1-50)

Constraints: {'minimum': 1, 'maximum': 50}

search (string, query, required)

Search string to look for in entity labels and aliases

type (string, query, optional, default: item)

Type of entity to search for

Constraints: {'enum': ['item', 'property', 'lexeme', 'form', 'sense']}

Examples (2)

TitleTypeURLAction
Search Wikidata entities openapi-spec https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbsearchentities?search=Albert Einstein&language=en
Search Wikidata entities probe-gate https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbsearchentities?search=Albert+Einstein&language=en&type=item&limit=7&format=json

Probe History

Latency

Status Codes

TimeStatusLatencySize
2026-03-23 09:16:10.745201 200 371ms
2026-03-23 09:01:40.108818 200 216ms
2026-03-21T18:00:36.813964 200 259ms

Response Changes

WhenOldNew
2026-03-23 09:01:40.108818 199c96208977 822a29bcfc0a
2026-03-23 09:16:10.745201 822a29bcfc0a 981a4b88db14