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Guides to Info Resources > Subject Disciplines >Statistics >International Statistics

Last revised: August, 2009

International Statistics

Scope: Many governments and international organizations are putting their statistical data on the Internet. The majority of the sources listed here are free-of-charge and accessible to anyone with access to the World Wide Web. If you are a student, faculty member, or staff person at the University of Maryland at College Park, you may email the librarian subject area specialist Judy Markowitz for more information.

Comprehensive Sources

  • WDI: World Development Indicators Online (UM Only)
    Provides direct access to more than 550 development indicators, with time series for 200 countries and 18 country groups from 1960, where data are available. Data export options in Excel or ASCII.

  • UNData
    Keyword searchable database over over 50 million records from the United Nations and its agencies. Includes demographic, economic, education, health, environmental, agricultural, and technology indicators.

  • CIA World Factbook
    Annual publication of country profiles and statistics.

  • EIU Viewswire (UM Only)
    EIU ViewsWire is a full-text country news daily that provides analysis and forecast information on worldwide politics, economics, business strategies & conditions and market trends in almost 200 countries.

  • FEDSTATS Agencies Page
    Links to US federal agencies represented on the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy. http://www.fedstats.gov/agencies

  • Infonation
    United Nations site with statistical data on UN member states' geographies, economies, populations, and social indicators.
    http://www.un.org/Pubs/CyberSchoolBus/infonation/e_infonation.htm

  • Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
    "Access to the world's largest archive of computerized social science data."
    To arrange access at UM contact BSOS.

  • NationMaster.com
    This free site compiles data from prominent international statistics sources like the CIA, UN and others and presents them graphically to allow easy comparisons of countries.

  • OFFSTATS: Official Statistics on the Web
    Browse by country, region, or topic.

  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
    Agricultural, development, economic, educational, energy, environmental, financial, health, public sector, science and technology, and social policy statistics.

  • SourceOECD (UM Only)
    The online library of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Comprises 20 book collections by theme, containing all OECD monographs and reports, most OECD periodicals, and the OECD statistical databases.

  • Statistical Resources on the Web
    University of Michigan Document Center. Links to sites on Foreign Governments, Military, Political, Economic, Demographic, and Foreign Trade and Economics statistics, etc.

  • United Nations Scholars' Workstation
    Yale University site "is a collection of texts, finding aids, data sets, maps, and pointers to print and electronic information. Subject coverage includes disarmament, economic and social development, environment, human rights, international relations, international trade, peacekeeping, and population and demography."

  • United Nations Statistics Division
    Free access to selected portions of UN Statistical Publications such as the Demographics Yearbook and Statistics and Indicators on the World's Women.

  • US Census Bureau
    The Census Bureau site has links to international population data, foreign trade statistics, and a commodity groupings database.

  • US State Department Background Information on Countries of the World
    Economic, demographic, political, and historical profiles of countries including Country Commercial Guides.

Economic & Development Statistics

      Development

    • WDI: World Development Indicators Online (UM Only)
      Provides direct access to more than 550 development indicators, with time series for 200 countries and 18 country groups from 1960, where data are available. Data export options in Excel or ASCII.

    • Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University
      Data depository which includes the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Database, Trade Openness Indicators, Sources of Slow Growth in African Economies, Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth, plus geography, education, agricultural and disease datasets (most in Excel format.)

    • Global Distribution of Poverty
      Subnational, spatially explicit, poverty data sets. These are available for selected proxy measures of poverty, at global and national scales.
      http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/povmap/

    • Millennium Development Goals Indicators
      This site presents the official data, definitions, methodologies and sources for more than 60 indicators to measure progress towards the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Keyword searchable.

    • OECD Aid Statistics
      Statistics and reports on aid and other resource flows to developing countries and countries in transition and related matters.
      http://www.oecd.org/statisticsdata/0,2643,en_2649_34447_1_119656_1_1_1,00.html

    • United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
      Human Development Report, Human Development Index, Gender-Related Development Index, Gender Empowerment Measure, Trends in Economic Performance, Financial Inflows and Outflows, Human Profile and Index, North-South Gaps, etc.

    • World Bank Development Data
      Includes World Development Reports, quick reference tables, Gas and Diesel Price Databank, Global Development Finance, and selected tables from World Development Indicators.

      Finance/Investment

    • Bank for International Settlements (BIS)
      Publications which can be downloaded include the Annual Report, "Quarterly Review: International Banking and Financial Market Developments," "BIS Consolidated International Banking Statistics," and "Joint BIS-IMF-OECD-World Bank Statistics on External Debt."

    • Bureau of Economic Analysis International Accounts Data
      Statistics on balances and payments, imports and exports, investment position, foreign direct investment in the US, and US direct investment abroad.

    • Ease of Doing Business
      World Bank site that ranks economies based on having a regulatory environment that is conducive to the operation of business.

    • Federal Reserve Board
      Current and historical data on foreign exchange rates.

    • International Monetary Fund
      The most recent "World Economic Outlook," Staff Country Reports, Annual Report, IMF Working Papers, Summary of Disbursements and Repayments, and IMF Surveys.

    • Penn World Table
      National accounts economic time series for many countries from the Center for International Comparisons at the University of Pennsylvania.

    • UNCTAD Foreign Direct Investment Database
      "The FDI database presents aggregate inflows, outflows, inward stocks and outward stocks of foreign direct investment (FDI) for 196 reporting economies in an interactive format."

    • UNCTAD World Investment Directory
      "Detailed statistics on foreign direct investment (FDI) and operations of transnational corporations (TNCs) in selected countries."

    • WDI: World Development Indicators Online (UM Only)
      Provides direct access to more than 550 development indicators, with time series for 200 countries and 18 country groups from 1960, where data are available. Data export options in Excel or ASCII.

      Trade

    • Bureau of Labor Statistics Import/Export Price Indexes
      "The International Price Program produces Import Price Indexes (MPI) and Export Price Indexes (XPI) containing data on changes in the prices of nonmilitary goods and services traded between the U.S. and the rest of the world."

    • Export.gov
      Access to the U.S. Commercial Service Market Research Library: Country Commercial Guides, Market Updates, Industry Overviews, Multilateral Development Bank Reports, Best Markets, Industry/Regional Reports, and agricultural goods market research reports.

    • Foreign Trade Statistics
      US Census Bureau. Country-commodity trade data, trade balances with partner countries, and monthly lists of top trading partners.

    • International Trade Administration
      Office of Trade and Economic Analysis site has links to information to the US Industry and Trade Outlook, US Foreign Trade Highlights, and Global Data Links. Free registration required.

    • Trade Logistics Performance Index (LPI)
      World Bank site. "The LPI is an interactive benchmarking tool created to help countries identify the challenges and opportunities they face in their performance on trade logistics and what they can do to improve their performance – the LPI allow for comparisons across 150 countries."

    • TRAINS on the Internet
      Online access to the database on trade control measures (tariff, para-tariff and non-tariff measures) and on import flows (at Harmonized System 6-digit level.) (Last update = 2004)

    • UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics Online
      Data on international merchandise trade and international trade in services.

    • USA Trade Center
      Department of Commerce site links to Business Information Services for the Newly Independent States (BISNIS), Central and East European Business Information Center (CEEBIC), and Multilateral Development Bank Operations (MDBO).

    • US International Trade Commission Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb
      Data sets from multilateral, country and regional sources going back to 1989. Can be searched by HTS items, SIC, NAICS, and SITC codes. Access is free, but users must create an account.

    • World Trade Organization
      Trade statistics site with up-to-date aggregate developments in world trade.

Environment, Agriculture, Science & Technology

Political, Military, & Defense Statistics

Population, Migration, and Refugee Statistics

Social, Education, and Health Statistics

      Cultural and Social

    • Ethnologue: Languages of the World
      "Catalogue of more than 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries."

    • OECD Family Database
      Cross-national indicators on the situation of families and children for OECD countries.

    • OECD Social Expenditure Database
      "It includes reliable and internationally comparable statistics on public and (mandatory and voluntary) private social expenditure at programme level."

    • Pew Global Attitudes Project
      "The Pew Global Attitudes Project is a series of worldwide public opinion surveys that encompasses a broad array of subjects ranging from people's assessments of their own lives to their views about the current state of the world and important issues of the day. More than 150,000 interviews in 54 countries have been conducted as part of the project's work."

    • SourceOECD (UM Only)
      The online library of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Comprises 20 book collections by theme, containing all OECD monographs and reports, most OECD periodicals, and the OECD statistical databases.

    • UNESCO Reports: Culture and Communication
      Data on books, broadcasting, films, and libraries.

    • World Values Survey
      "The World Values Survey (WVS) is a global network of social scientists who have surveyed the basic values and beliefs of the publics of more than 80 societies, on all six inhabited continents."

Country and Region-Specific Sources

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Last modified: October 02, 2009

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