Building an Ontology for the Tangible Cultural Heritage of the Medina of Fez

The Medina of Fez, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a cultural and historical treasure requiring innovative approaches for its preservation and promotion in the digital era. This paper presents MedinaOnto, an ontology dedicated to modeling the built cultural heritage of the Medina of Fez, developed in alignment with established standards like CIDOC-CRM, FOAF, and GEOSPARQL. The ontology aims to structure and interconnect knowledge about the Medina’s buildings while integrating social, geospatial, and historical dimensions. Based on the Core Data Standard and enriched with structured data from open sources such as Wikidata and DBpedia, the ontology aims to represent a wide range of heritage entities, including monuments, historic buildings, and culturally significant spaces. The modeling approach followed a structured ontology engineering methodology, combining domain analysis, concept extraction, the formulation of Competency Questions, and iterative refinement. The evaluation of the ontology was conducted through logical consistency tests, scenario-based validation, and SPARQL queries derived from Competency Questions. The results confirmed that MedinaOnto enables robust semantic reasoning and effective data querying. Designed as a reusable and scalable semantic framework, Medina Onto targets both public and heritage professionals, with a focus on valorization, mediation, and research.