> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.gdeltcloud.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Event Taxonomy
> Unified reference for Conflict, CAMEO+, and Story taxonomies in GDELT Cloud
GDELT Cloud organizes the global news stream into three structured layers. This page is a single-place reference to the categories, sub-categories, and metrics used across all three.
ACLED-style political violence, demonstrations, and strategic developments
Ten structural domains beyond conflict
Daily article clusters with scope and theme tags
## Three lenses
| Lens | What it captures | Where to look |
| ------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Conflict events** | Battles, protests, riots, explosions, violence against civilians, strategic developments. 3-level hierarchy: disorder type → event type → sub-event type. | [Conflict Data](/features/conflict-data) · [Conflict Events API](/api-reference/openapi-conflict-events.json) |
| **CAMEO+ events** | Politics, crime, economy, corporate, technology, infrastructure, environment, health, demographics, information. | [Event Coding](/features/event-coding) · [CAMEO+ Events API](/api-reference/openapi-cameoplus-events.json) |
| **Story clusters** | A daily cluster of articles converging on a single narrative, with scope and a theme tag. | [Stories endpoint](/api-reference/v2-endpoints) (V2 API) |
## Conflict events (ACLED-style)
GDELT Cloud independently codes political violence, protests, and strategic developments using the ACLED methodology. We don't license or redistribute ACLED's dataset — we follow their codebook on top of our own GDELT-derived clusters.
Armed conflict, attacks, explosions, and targeted violence by armed actors.
* **Battles** — armed clash, government regains territory, non-state actor overtakes territory
* **Explosions / Remote violence** — air/drone strike, shelling, IED, suicide bomb, grenade, chemical weapon
* **Violence against civilians** — attack, abduction/forced disappearance, sexual violence
Organized protests, riots, and crowd-driven violence.
* **Protests** — peaceful protest, protest with intervention, excessive force against protesters
* **Riots** — violent demonstration, mob violence
Concrete actions that change the conflict landscape without combat.
* Agreement, arrests, headquarters or base established, looting/property destruction, non-violent transfer of territory, change to group/activity, disrupted weapons use, other
For the full actor typing system, geographic precision rules, and field-level reference, see the dedicated **[Conflict Data](/features/conflict-data)** page.
## CAMEO+ events (10 structural domains)
CAMEO+ extends the classic CAMEO political-event taxonomy to cover structural domains that drive geopolitics, markets, and instability. Each domain has its own code prefix.
| Domain | Prefix | What it captures |
| -------------- | ------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Political | (CAMEO root) | Diplomatic, cooperative, verbal-conflict, and non-violent coercive events |
| Crime | `CR` | Ordinary crime, criminal justice, policing, trafficking, gang and custody events |
| Economic | `EC` | Macroeconomic, monetary, fiscal, trade, capital flow, market stress |
| Corporate | `CO` | M\&A, production, technology development, capital allocation |
| Technology | `TE` | AI capability, military tech, cyber, space, strategic controls |
| Infrastructure | `IN` | Energy, transport, supply chain, communications, water systems |
| Environment | `EN` | Geophysical, meteorological, climate, pollution events |
| Health | `HE` | Outbreaks, pandemics, vaccines, public health policy |
| Demographic | `DE` | Migration, refugee flows, population crises, labor events |
| Information | `IF` | Disinformation, info control, leaks, narrative warfare |
For the full event-code list per domain (e.g. `EC02 — MONETARY POLICY ACTION`, `TE03 — CYBER EVENT`), the OpenAPI schemas at **[CAMEO+ Events API](/api-reference/openapi-cameoplus-events.json)** are authoritative. The **[Event Coding](/features/event-coding)** page walks through how the codes are assigned.
## Metrics
Every event carries domain-aware numeric metrics so they can be ranked, routed, and used as features.
| Metric | Range | Best for |
| ----------------------- | ---------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `goldstein_scale` | −10 to +10 | Cooperation-to-conflict spectrum (political and conflict events) |
| `magnitude` | 0 to 10 | Domain-specific severity — economic shock, environmental hazard, capability jump |
| `systemic_importance` | 0 to 1 | How many states / populations / sectors are materially affected |
| `propagation_potential` | 0 to 1 | Speed and likelihood of cascading effects (highest for cyber, supply chain, info ops) |
| `market_sensitivity` | 0 to 1 | How much the event tends to move financial markets |
Combine `goldstein_scale` with `magnitude` to filter for the most consequential conflict shifts; combine `magnitude` with `market_sensitivity` for macro-relevant shocks.
## Story clusters
A **Story** is a daily cluster of articles that converge on a single narrative. Stories are the intermediate layer between raw articles and structured Events — the same clustering output that Events are coded from.
### Scope levels
Each Story is tagged with one of four geographic scope bands:
* **Local** — a single city or sub-national area, with sources rooted to that place
* **National** — coverage spans a single country and its national press
* **Regional** — a multi-country region (the Sahel, the Levant, Southeast Asia)
* **International** — major outlets across multiple regions are converging on the story
### Theme buckets
Story categories are emitted by the clustering layer and are **not a fixed enum** — fresh labels can appear for novel narratives. Most stories cluster into recurring buckets:
* Conflict & Security
* Diplomacy & Politics
* Economy & Markets
* Energy & Infrastructure
* Climate & Environment
* Health & Disease
* Migration & Demographics
* Technology & AI
* Information & Media
* Crime & Justice
Stories link back to the Events generated from their cluster. From a structured Conflict or CAMEO+ event, you can pivot to the underlying article-level evidence and the related stories — and from a story, fan out to all the events it produced.
## Where to go next
Full ACLED-style fields, actor coding, geographic precision, and edge cases
How CAMEO+ codes are assigned across the ten domains
Query events, stories, and entities together
Use the same taxonomy through agentic MCP tools