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Guides to Info. Resources > Statistics > Finding International Statistics Online

Last revised: August, 2007

Online Sources of 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 e-mail the subject area specialist at gfoudy@umd.edu for more information.

Table of Contents

Comprehensive Sources

  • CIA World Factbook
    Annual publication of country profiles and statistics.
    https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html

  • 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.
    http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/

  • 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.
    http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php

  • OFFSTATS: Official Statistics on the Web
    Browse by country, region, or topic.
    http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/subjects/stats/offstats/

  • 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.
    http://www.oecd.org/statistics/

  • 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.
    http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html

  • 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."
    http://www.library.yale.edu/un/index.html

  • 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.
    http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/statdiv.htm

  • US Census Bureau
    The Census Bureau site has links to international population data, foreign trade statistics, and a commodity groupings database.
    http://www.census.gov/

  • US State Department Background Information on Countries of the World
    Economic, demographic, political, and historical profiles of countries including Country Commercial Guides.
    http://www.state.gov/www/regions/background_info_countries.html

Subscription Databases UM ONLY

  • WDI: World Development Indicators Online
    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.

  • SourceOECD
    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.

  • EIU Viewswire
    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.

Economic & Development Statistics

  • 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."
    http://www.bis.org/publ/index.htm

  • 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.
    http://www.bea.gov/International/Index.htm

  • 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."
    http://www.bls.gov/mxp/home.htm

  • Bureau of Transportation Statistics
    International transportation statistics including Latin American Transportation Fact Sheets, International Air Passenger and Freight Statistics, and International Travel and Tourism Statistics.
    http://www.bts.gov/programs/international/

  • 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.)
    http://www.cid.harvard.edu/ciddata/

  • 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.
    http://www.export.gov/mrktresearch/index.asp

  • Federal Reserve Board
    Current and historical data on foreign exchange rates.
    http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/

  • Foreign Labor Statistics
    Bureau of Labor Statistics data series.
    http://stats.bls.gov/fls/home.htm

  • Foreign Trade Statistics
    US Census Bureau. Country-commodity trade data, trade balances with partner countries, and monthly lists of top trading partners.
    http://www.census.gov/ftp/pub/foreign-trade/www/

  • 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/

  • International Labour Organisation (ILO) Labour Statistics
    International labor statistics for many nations from 1988 -, including an International Labour Migration database.
    http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/stat/

  • 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.
    http://www.imf.org/

  • 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.
    http://www.ita.doc.gov/

  • Penn World Table
    National accounts economic time series for many countries from the Center for International Comparisons at the University of Pennsylvania.
    http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/

  • 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.)
    http://r0.unctad.org/trains/tfori.htm

  • 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.
    http://www.undp.org/publications/l

  • UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
    Economic indicators by country including statistics on manufacturing.
    http://www.unido.org/doc/50215.htmls

  • 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).
    http://usatc.doc.gov/

  • 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.
    http://dataweb.usitc.gov/scripts/user_set.asp

  • Virtual International Business and Economic Sources (VIBES)
    Site from UNC-Charlotte which "provides over 1,500 links to Internet sources of international business and economic information that are in English and available free of charge."
    http://libweb.uncc.edu/ref-bus/vibehome.htm

  • 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.
    http://www.worldbank.org/data/

  • World Trade Organization
    Trade statistics site with up-to-date aggregate developments in world trade.
    http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/statis_e.htm

Environmental, Science, Agricultural, & Technology Statistics

Political, Military, & Defense Statistics

  • Amnesty International
    Reports on international human rights violations and abuses.
    http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/index.html

  • Armed Conflict and Intervention
    George Mason University site with data on conflict regions, direct military intervention, political interaction events, bilateral trade flows, memberships in conventional inter-governmental organizations, forcibly dislocated populations, and arms trade.
    http://globalpolicy.gmu.edu/

  • Center for Defense Information
    Arms Trade Database has information about global arms trading.
    http://www.cdi.org/

  • Correlates of War Project
    "This website is intended to both as a guide to published sources drawn primarily from the Correlates of War data sets as well as various non-COW datasets available through the internet. Towards that end, a bibliography of articles and books by Correlates of War researchers is provided along with a page of links to quantitative international relations data."
    http://www.umich.edu/~cowproj/

  • Freedom House
    Includes the reports: "Freedom in the World," "Nations in Transit," "Freedom of the Press," and "Countries at the Crossroads."
    http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=1

  • Human Rights Watch Reports
    Includes the Human Rights Watch World Report, plus reports which can be searched by country, region, or theme.
    http://hrw.org/doc/?t=pubs

  • Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
    Annual reports (1970 to 2003), country reports, and Report on the Status of Women in the Americas.
    http://www.cidh.oas.org/commission.htm

  • International Crisis Behavior Project Data Archive
    Downloadable system-level data on international crises and actor-level data for each crisis.
    http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/icb/

  • Inter-Parliamentary Union
    Parline Database can be searched for electoral statistics on parliamentary governments.
    http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/parlinesearch.asp

  • Minorities at Risk
    From the University of Maryland. Interactive database gives information on "the status and conflicts of politically-active communal groups in all countries with a current population of at least 500,000."
    http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/

  • MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Database
    Information on groups, cases, incidents, leaders and members.
    http://www.tkb.org/Home.jsp

  • Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Index of Nuclear Data
    Tables and charts for Nuclear Stockpiles and Forces, and Nuclear Tests Worldwide.
    http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datainx.asp

  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
    Public management statistics.
    http://www.oecd.org/statistics/

  • Political Database of the Americas
    "Provides documentary and statistical political information on Latin America." Georgetown University site.
    http://www.georgetown.edu/pdba/

  • Polity IV Project
    From the University of Maryland. "Coded annual information on regime and authority characteristics for all independent states (with greater than 500,000 total population) in the global state system. Covers the years 1800-2004. "
    http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/polity/index.htm

  • Reporters without Borders Press Freedom Rankings
    "To compile this ranking, Reporters Without Borders asked journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists to fill out a questionnaire evaluating respect for press freedom in a particular country. A total of 166 countries are included in the ranking (as against 139 last year). The other countries were left out because of a lack of reliable, well-supported data."
    http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=8247

  • State Failure Task Force: Internal Wars and Failures of Governance 1995-2004
    University of Maryland site provides access to several data resources, including the latest version of the State Failure Problem Set, 1955-2005 (four separate MS Excel files: Ethnic Wars, Revolutionary Wars, Genocides and Politicides, and Adverse Regime Changes).
    http://globalpolicy.gmu.edu/pitf/

  • United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
    Statistical reports on refugees including data on asylum seeking and the demographics of refugee populations.
    http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/statistics

  • US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
    Annual reports submitted to the US Congress on internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
    http://www.state.gov/g/drl/hr/c1470.htm

  • US State Department: Reports on Terrorism
    Individual country data plus statistics on international terrorist attacks and casualties.
    http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/

  • Worldwide Refugee Information
    "The World Refugee Survey reports on conditions for refugees and internally displaced persons in 120 countries."
    http://www.refugees.org/article.aspx?id=1175&rid=1178&subm=19&ssm=30&area=Investigate

Population Statistics

Social, Educational, & Health Statistics

Country/Region Specific Sources

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Last modified: August 1, 2007

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