---
id: ontologies/smart-city-ontology-mediterranean
about:
  label: >-
    Conceptualizing Small and Medium-Sized Smart Cities in the Mediterranean
    Region: An Ontological Approach
  description: >-
    A 2019 paper in the International Journal of E-Planning Research by
    Panagiotopoulou, Kokla and Stratigea of the National Technical University of
    Athens that extends an existing smart city ontology with concepts and
    relationships drawn from small and medium-sized Mediterranean cities.
  tags:
    - smart city
    - ontology
    - mediterranean
    - small cities
    - urban planning
    - paper
article:
  tier: 3
  url: 'https://doi.org/10.4018/IJEPR.2019100102'
  published: '2019'
  publisher: International Journal of E-Planning Research (IGI Global)
  authors:
    - Maria Panagiotopoulou
    - Margarita Kokla
    - Anastasia Stratigea
domains:
  - places
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: >-
        Conceptualizing Small and Medium-Sized Smart Cities in the Mediterranean
        Region: An Ontological Approach
      url: 'https://doi.org/10.4018/IJEPR.2019100102'
  created: '2026-10-19'
  reviewed: '2026-10-19'
  reviewed_by: >-
    Claude, from the abstract and citation details on the publisher page only;
    the full text is behind a paywall and was not read.
  status: draft
---
After a decade of interest in smart cities there is still no agreed definition. Definitions run from purely technological ones to much broader ones. The authors say this lack of a shared vocabulary blocks semantic interoperability, the ability of separate systems to exchange data with its meaning intact. They also note that technology-led smart city projects have often failed to deliver in several urban domains.

Their argument is that planning "smart" should fit the spatial and other particulars of a city and the way its subsystems interact. That means first understanding the city's ontology: the kinds of things in the city and how they relate. The aim of the extension is to set out the main drivers of small and medium-sized Mediterranean cities and how those drivers relate, so that the smart city idea makes sense in that spatial context.

The result is a vocabulary for describing a small or mid-sized Mediterranean city as a set of drivers and relations.

Published in volume 8, issue 4, pages 17 to 41. The full text is available through the publisher, by institutional access or purchase.