The temporalCoverage of a CreativeWork indicates the period that the content applies to, i.e. that it describes, either as a DateTime or as a textual string indicating a time period in ISO 8601 time interval format. In the case of a Dataset it will typically indicate the relevant time period in a precise notation (e.g. for a 2011 census dataset, the year 2011 would be written "2011/2012"). Other forms of content e.g. ScholarlyArticle, Book, TVSeries or TVEpisode may indicate their temporalCoverage in broader terms - textually or via well-known URL. Written works such as books may sometimes have precise temporal coverage too, e.g. a work set in 1939 - 1945 can be indicated in ISO 8601 interval format format via "1939/1945".

Open-ended date ranges can be written with ".." in place of the end date. For example, "2015-11/.." indicates a range beginning in November 2015 and with no specified final date. This is tentative and might be updated in future when ISO 8601 is officially updated.