PATH: Janda's Favorite URLs > International Data Sources

Updated September 7, 2011

International and Comparative Data Sources
International Data Base (IDB)
"The U.S. Census Bureau conducts demographic and economic studies and strengthens statistical development around the world through technical assistance, training, and software products. For over 60 years, the Census Bureau has assisted in the collection, processing, analysis, dissemination, and use of statistics with counterpart governments in over 100 countries."
World Development Report
"The World Bank's annual World Development Report provides a wide international readership with an extraordinary window on development economics. Each year, the report focuses on a specific aspect of development."
World Statistics: Social, Political, Economic
Infoplease provides convenient access to General World Statistics, Population Statistics, Health and Social Statistics, Economic Statistics, Political Statistics, and Worldwide Conflicts and Wars.
Internet World Statistics
"Internet World Stats is an International website that features up to date world Internet Usage, Population Statistics, Travel Stats and Internet Market Research Data, for over 233 individual countries and world regions.."
NationMaster
"A massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. NationMaster is a vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, UN, and OECD. Using the form above, you can generate maps and graphs on all kinds of statistics with ease."
United Nations Statistics Division
"The Statistics Division is committed to the advancement of the global statistical system. We compile and disseminate global statistical information, develop standards and norms for statistical activities, and support countries' efforts to strengthen their national statistical systems. We facilitate the coordination of international statistical activities and support the functioning of the UN Statistical Commission as the apex entity of the global statistical system"
Map Collections: 1500-date
"The focus of Map Collections is Americana and Cartographic Treasures of the Library of Congress. These images were created from maps and atlases and, in general, are restricted to items that are not covered by copyright protection. Map Collections is organized according to seven major categories. Because a map will be assigned to only one category, unless it is part of more than one core collection, searching Map Collections at this level will provide the most complete results since the indexes for all categories are searched simultaneously."
International Survey Organizations
World Values Survey
"The World Values Survey (WVS) is a worldwide network of social scientists studying changing values and their impact on social and political life. The WVS in collaboration with EVS (European Values Study) carried out representative national surveys in 97 societies containing almost 90 percent of the world's population. These surveys show pervasive changes in what people want out of life and what they believe. In order to monitor these changes, the EVS/WVS has executed five waves of surveys, from 1981 to 2007."
Eurobarometer
The European Commission conducts periodic surveys. "This tool runs a search of the Trends questions database. It is possible to look for data on specific countries or a group of countries. In addition to comparing the results of several countries for a specific question, it allows analysis of country trends . The data can be displayed as a graph, a pie chart, in an excel table or in columns. Survey results can also be displayed on a map of the EU. The colour coding facilitates quick and easy comparisons between countries."
International Social Survey Programme
"The ISSP is a continuing annual programme of cross-national collaboration on surveys covering topics important for social science research. It brings together pre-existing social science projects and coordinates research goals, thereby adding a cross-national, cross-cultural perspective to the individual national studies."
European Election Studies
"The European Election Studies (EES) are about electoral participation and voting behaviour in European Parliament elections, but more than that. . . . European Election Studies include more components than the postelection surveys among representative samples of voters. These additional components include content analyses of party manifestos ("Euromanifestos"), elite surveys (candidates and deputies), and content analyses of media news. More information on these three "additional" components is available on this webpage, too."