Abstract. Let C and D be digraphs. A mapping f :, and the preimage of every vertex of C induces an acyclic subdigraph in D. We say that D is C-colourable if it admits a C-colouring and that D is uniquely C-colourable if it is surjectively Ccolourable and any two C-colourings of D differ by an automorphism of C. We prove that if a digraph D is not C-colourable, then there exist digraphs of arbitrarily large girth that are D-colourable but not C-colourable. Moreover, for every digraph D that is uniquely D-colourable, there exists a uniquely D-colourable digraph of arbitrarily large girth. In particular, this implies that for every rational number r ≥ 1, there are uniquely circularly r-colourable digraphs with arbitrarily large girth.

In the standard Category of Graphs, the graphs allow only one edge to be incident to any two vertices, not necessarily distinct, and the graph morphisms must map edges to edges and vertices to vertices while preserving incidence. We refer to these graph morphisms as Strict Morphisms. We relax the condition on the graphs allowing any number of edges to be incident to any two vertices, as well as relaxing the condition on graph morphisms by allowing edges to be mapped to vertices, provided that incidence is still preserved. We call this broader graph category The Category of Conceptual Graphs, and define four other graph categories created by combinations of restrictions of the graph morphisms as well as restrictions on the allowed graphs.We investigate which Lawvere axioms for the category of Sets and Functions apply to each of these Categories of Graphs, as well as the other categorial constructions of free objects, projective objects, generators, and their categorial duals.