How can I get a list of currencies from Wikidata?

Question

Some currencies already exist, like [1], [2] and they are all instances of currency [3]. Unfortunately there are no links to all instances from [3]. So is there a possibility to get this list from Wikidata?

• [1] http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4916 (Euro)
• [2] http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4917 (US dollar)
• [3] http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8142 (Currency)

Answer 1

Yes, there is.

There are several ways to get this list:

1. You can, in Wikidata website, look at every entity that has a link to currency (Q8142): https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Q8142. The problem of this is that you will have some entities that makes a link to currency other than instance of.

2. The best way is to use an external tool called AutoList, developed by a German guy called Magnus Manske. The link of his tool is here: https://tools.wmflabs.org/autolist/autolist1.html

This tool uses a query language WDQ. Its documentation is here: https://wdq.wmflabs.org/api_documentation.html

Here is how it works:

The property "instance of" has the identifier P31. The value "currency" has the identifier Q8142.

If you want every Wikidata entity with the condition (P31 == Q8142) equals true:

• copy-paste claim[31:8142] in the form field called Query;
• click on the Run button.

Answer 2

The official dataset on currencies is maintained by the ISO 4217 standard. You can download the currency dataset in XML or Excel format at this link:

http://www.currency-iso.org/en/home/tables/table-a1.html