---
id: "ark"
kind: "datatype"
status: "draft"
is_pii: false
categories: ["objectids"]
langs: ["common"]
quality: 85
url: "http://registry.apicrafter.io/datatype/ark"
---

# Archival Resource Key (ARK) (`ark`)

> **Draft.** Draft records have not been reviewed yet and may be incomplete or wrong; do not treat them as authoritative for legal or compliance decisions.

Persistent identifier for digital, physical or abstract objects, used by libraries, archives, publishers and research institutions. The core is ark:<NAAN>/<name>, where the Name Assigning Authority Number (NAAN) identifies the organization that named the object. Older ARKs write ark:/<NAAN>/<name>. An ARK can be prefixed with the host of a resolver, such as n2t.net or the host of the institution that serves the object. The NAAN registry is kept by the ARK Alliance.

- Personal data (PII): no
- Categories: Objects identifiers (objectids)
- Countries: global
- Languages: Common to most languages (common)
- Classification: identifier

## Detection

Regular expression (Python `re`):

```
^(?:https?://[A-Za-z0-9.-]+/)?ark:/?[0-9bcdfghjkmnpqrstvwxz]+/\S+$
```

## Examples

- `ark:/12148/cb11865278m` — Bibliothèque nationale de France authority record for Paris
- `ark:12148/cb11865278m` — The same ARK without the slash after ark:
- `https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb11865278m` — The same ARK with a resolver host
- `ark:/12148` (invalid example) — The name part is missing

## Mappings

- bioregistry: `ark`
- wikidata: `P8054`

## Sources

- wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archival_Resource_Key>
- wikidata: <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P8054>
- doc: <https://arks.org/>

## Quality

Score 85/100. Missing: translation, detector coverage.

JSON: <http://registry.apicrafter.io/api/v1/datatypes/ark.json> · Edit: <https://github.com/apicrafter/metacrafter-registry/edit/main/data/datatypes/any/objectids/ark.yaml>