department

department · Optional

Appears in

• Organization

What is it?

department describes a subdivision of an organization that operates with enough independence to have its own URL, contact information, logo, or opening hours. Common examples include a university's law school, a hospital's cardiology department, or a retail chain's customer service division.

The value is an Organization object, meaning each department can carry its own properties: name, url, telephone, address, and so on. This lets a parent organization describe its internal structure in a way that search engines and AI systems can parse as discrete entities.

Why this matters for AEO

AI answer engines resolve entity queries at a granular level. When a user asks "What is the phone number for Apple's enterprise sales department?" or "Does MIT have a robotics department?", structured data that expresses departments as named sub-entities helps AI systems return specific answers rather than routing to a generic organization homepage.

The department field also allows each subdivision to have its own location, hours, and contact point, which is particularly valuable for hospital systems, university faculties, and multi-division corporations where each unit serves different user needs.

What the specs say

Schema.org:department expects an Organization value. A relationship between an organization and a department of that organization, also described as an organization, allowing different urls, logos, opening hours. [Source: https://schema.org/department]

Google: Not mentioned in Google's structured data documentation for Organization. This field does not trigger a specific rich result type but may contribute to knowledge graph entity resolution. [Source: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/organization]

How to find your value

For each department, gather: the department's official name, its URL (if it has a dedicated page), contact phone or email, and physical address if it differs from the parent organization. Opening hours are relevant for departments that have public-facing service windows.

Do not use department for loose team names or informal groupings. It is intended for units that can be independently described as organizations.

Format and code

University with departments

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Massachusetts Institute of Technology",
  "url": "https://www.mit.edu",
  "department": [
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science",
      "url": "https://www.eecs.mit.edu",
      "telephone": "+1-617-253-4603"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "MIT Sloan School of Management",
      "url": "https://mitsloan.mit.edu"
    }
  ]
}

Hospital with clinical departments

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Mayo Clinic",
  "url": "https://www.mayoclinic.org",
  "department": [
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "Mayo Clinic Department of Cardiology",
      "url": "https://www.mayoclinic.org/departments-centers/cardiovascular",
      "openingHours": "Mo-Fr 08:00-17:00"
    }
  ]
}

Retail company with support department

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Stripe",
  "url": "https://stripe.com",
  "department": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Stripe Support",
    "url": "https://support.stripe.com",
    "contactPoint": {
      "@type": "ContactPoint",
      "contactType": "customer support",
      "url": "https://support.stripe.com/contact"
    }
  }
}

Webflow implementation

Static pages

Add department data in Page Settings > Custom Code on the organization's main page:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Your Organization",
  "department": [
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "Department Name",
      "url": "https://yourdomain.com/department",
      "telephone": "+1-555-000-0000"
    }
  ]
}
</script>

CMS template pages

For organizations with many departments managed in a CMS, store each department as a CMS collection item and inject department data into the parent organization's page via a custom code embed referencing collection fields.

In Schema HQ

Use Schema HQ's organization schema editor to add department entries. Each department is structured as a nested Organization object and is included in the exported JSON-LD.

Real examples

Stanford University:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Stanford University",
  "url": "https://www.stanford.edu",
  "department": [
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "Stanford Law School",
      "url": "https://law.stanford.edu"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "Stanford Graduate School of Business",
      "url": "https://www.gsb.stanford.edu"
    }
  ]
}

Related fields

• subOrganization
• parentOrganization
• member
• contactPoint

FAQ

What is the difference between department and subOrganization?

department is for internal subdivisions of an organization that share the same legal entity. subOrganization is for legally distinct child organizations or subsidiaries. A company's marketing team is a department. A wholly owned subsidiary company is a subOrganization.

Can a department have its own address?

Yes. Since each department value is an Organization object, it can carry its own address, telephone, url, and openingHours. This is the primary reason the spec allows full Organization nesting here.

How many departments should be listed?

List departments that have public-facing identities: dedicated pages, separate phone numbers, or distinct service offerings. Internal cost centers or informal teams do not need structured data representation.