Traditional knowledge (TK), indigenous knowledge (IK), folk knowledge, and local knowledge generally refers to knowledge systems embedded in the cultural traditions of regional, indigenous, or local communities.
Traditional knowledge includes types of knowledge about traditional technologies of areas such as subsistence (e.g. tools and techniques for hunting or agriculture), midwifery, ethnobotany and ecological knowledge, traditional medicine, celestial navigation, craft skills, ethnoastronomy, climate, and others. These systems of knowledge are generally based on accumulations of empirical observation of and interaction with the environment, transmitted orally across generations.
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the United Nations (UN) include traditional cultural expressions (TCE) in their respective definitions of indigenous knowledge. Traditional knowledge systems and cultural expressions exist in the forms of culture, stories, legends, folklore, rituals, songs, and laws, languages, songlines, dance, games, mythology, designs, visual art and architecture.