Entity–relationship model
describes inter-related things of interest in a specific domain of knowledge;composed of entity types (which classify the things of interest) and specifies relationships that can exist between instances of those entity types
An entity–relationship model (or ER model) describes interrelated things of interest in a specific domain of knowledge. A basic ER model is composed of entity types (which classify the things of interest) and specifies relationships that can exist between entities (instances of those entity types).
In software engineering, an ER model is commonly formed to represent things a business needs to remember in order to perform business processes. Consequently, the ER model becomes an abstract data model, that defines a data or information structure that can be implemented in a database, typically a relational database.
Entity–relationship modeling was developed for database and design by Peter Chen and published in a 1976 paper, with variants of the idea existing previously. Today it is commonly used for teaching students the basics of database structure. Some ER models show super and subtype entities connected by generalization-specialization relationships, and an ER model can also be used to specify domain-specific ontologies.
Introduction
An ER model usually results from systematic analysis to define and describe the data created and needed by processes in a business area. Typically, it represents records of entities and events monitored and directed by business processes, rather than the processes themselves. It is usually drawn in a graphical form as boxes (entities) that are connected by lines (relationships) which express the associations and dependencies between entities.
“Entity–relationship model” enters the record as describes inter-related things of interest in a specific domain of knowledge;composed of entity types (which classify the things of interest) and specifies relationships that can exist between instances of those entity types. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Entity, relationship and model can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q624546. The Library of Congress control number is sh00009200. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1976.
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This entry incorporates text from “Entity–relationship model” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.