applicationjson

application/json is the official Internet media type for JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), a text-based data interchange format used to represent structured data as objects and arrays. It is widely employed in web APIs, services, and applications to transmit data between servers and clients.

JSON data is encoded as Unicode text, with UTF-8 being the most common encoding. The IANA registry lists application/json as the standard MIME type, and while the charset parameter can appear, JSON text is defined to be UTF-8 by default, making the charset largely redundant. In practice, servers commonly send Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8.

A JSON document describes values that may be objects (unordered sets of name/value pairs), arrays (ordered lists), strings, numbers, booleans, or null. The syntax is strict: strings use double quotes, numbers are in a defined format, and whitespace is insignificant outside strings. JSON does not allow comments, comments of any form are not part of the standard.

Related formats and variants include application/json-seq, designated for streaming multiple JSON texts in a single stream, as specified in RFC 7464. Other nonstandard or legacy variants such as text/json exist but are discouraged in modern use.

Usage considerations include setting and honoring the Content-Type and Accept headers, validating and safely parsing input, and avoiding embedding raw JSON in HTML without proper sanitization. While JSON is human-readable and language-agnostic, it is plain text and should be encoded or transported securely as with other data interchange formats.