XooCode(){

AdministrativeArea

AdministrativeArea is a Place subtype for political and governance jurisdictions. Its 4 direct subtypes are Country, State, City, and SchoolDistrict. It adds no properties of its own; use inherited Place properties (geo, containedInPlace, geoContains) plus sameAs to link to Wikidata or similar registries.

Full example of schema.org/AdministrativeArea json-ld markup

The markup is verified as valid with Rich Results Test from Google.

Highlight legend:Required by GoogleRecommendedOptional
schema.org/AdministrativeArea
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "AdministrativeArea",
  "name": "Lackawanna County",
  "description": "County in northeastern Pennsylvania, United States. County seat: Scranton. Population approximately 215,000.",
  "containedInPlace": { "@type": "State", "name": "Pennsylvania", "containedInPlace": { "@type": "Country", "name": "United States" } },
  "geo": { "@type": "GeoShape", "box": "41.67 -75.34 41.22 -75.84" },
  "sameAs": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q495164"
}
</script>

AdministrativeArea vs Landform vs Place

AdministrativeArea is for political boundaries (a state, a city, a county). Landform is for natural features (a mountain range, a lake). Bare Place is for anything else. A geographic region often has all three layers: the Great Lakes (Landform) are contained in the Great Lakes region (AdministrativeArea for federal resource management) which includes several US states (AdministrativeArea).

Minimal valid version

The smallest markup that still produces a valid AdministrativeArea entity. Use it as the floor. Reach for the advanced example above when you want search engines and AI agents to understand more about your content.

schema.org/AdministrativeArea (minimal)
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "AdministrativeArea",
  "name": "Lackawanna County",
  "containedInPlace": { "@type": "State", "name": "Pennsylvania" }
}
</script>

Google rich results this unlocks

Markup matching this example makes your page eligible for the following Google Search rich results. The primary target drives the required / recommended property classification in the advanced code block above.

  • No dedicated rich result (used by Knowledge Graph and place resolution)
    Google docs

Common AdministrativeArea mistakes

Mistakes that pass validation but silently fail to earn rich results or mislead consumers walking the graph. Avoid these and your markup will be ahead of most sites in the wild.

  1. 01

    Using bare AdministrativeArea when a subtype fits

    Wrong
    AdministrativeArea for a clearly-typed Country or State
    Right
    Country, State, City, or SchoolDistrict as appropriate

    Subtypes resolve faster against Knowledge Graph registries. Use bare AdministrativeArea only for jurisdictions that don't fit (counties, parishes, boroughs, federal districts).

  2. 02

    Omitting sameAs

    Wrong
    AdministrativeArea with only name and no sameAs
    Right
    Link to Wikidata (or a similar registry) via sameAs so AI consumers can disambiguate

    Many jurisdictions share names. Without sameAs, disambiguating 'Paris' (France) from 'Paris' (Texas) is impossible for automated consumers.

Schema properties in this example

AdministrativeAreaPlacenamedescriptioncontainedInPlaceStateCountrygeoGeoShapeboxsameAsCitySchoolDistrictgeoContainsgeoWithin

About the example data

Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, the county containing Dunmore and Scranton. Used throughout the Xoo Code universe as the canonical containedInPlace for local entities.

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