Helpful Information for Searching
Census Dates for Countries and Areas of the World: 1945 to 2014
Dates of census enumerations over the past half century, as well as projected or scheduled enumerations in the near future.
Index of International Statistical Agencies
Maintained by U.S. Census Bureau. Links to National Statistical Agencies across the world.
Statoids
Administrative Divisions of Countries. Worldwide reference for states, provinces, governorates, counties, districts, and other subdivisions of countries.
United Nations Statistics Division, 2020 World Population and Housing Census Programme
Facilitates the international exchange and sharing of knowledge and information on census taking, as well as provision of guidance to countries, and monitoring progress on the implementation of the Programme.
Index of National Mapping Agencies
World Heritage Convention
Index of National Mapping Agencies. No longer maintained.
UN Data
Global data portal of some UN Data. Includes list of links to Country Data Services.
Wikipedia List of Mapping Agencies
Data
ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset)
Dataset designed for disaggregated conflict analysis and crisis mapping. Coded location of all reported conflict events in 50 countries in the developing world from 1997 to 2010.
Afghanistan Data at USGS
Africa Data Dissemination Service
Data access to the data collected for the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) activity, aiming at strengthening the abilities of foreign countries and regional organizations to manage risk of food insecurity through the provision of timely and analytical early warning and vulnerability information. Data portal.
ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM)
30 meter global digital elevation model
Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)
CIESIN is the World Data Center for Human Interactions in the Environment, specializing in global and regional network development, science data management, decision support, and training, education and technical consultation services.
CARPE: Central African Regional Program for the Environment
Geospatial data for the Congo Basin.
CIA World Factbook
International maps and statistics of the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities.
EarthData (NASA Earth Observatory System Data and Information System)
Gateway to NASA’s global satellite data and derivatives.
EastView Cartographic
Commercial vendor, great source of international topo maps and data.
Empirical Studies of Conflict
Various conflict, insurgency, civil war, and other violence. Afghanistan, COlombia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan, Phillipes, Vietnam
Famine Early Warning System
International livelihood analysis and mapping.
FAO Data Clearinghouse
FAO Geoportal – GeoNetwork
GeoNetwork opensource provides internet access to interactive maps, satellite imagery and related spatial databases.
GEOFABRIK
Site to download Open Street Map into ArcGIS. You don’t get the full OSM dataset though.
Geolode
Global portal of geospatial data
Gfk GeoMarketing
Commercial vendor, great source of international administrative geography.
Global Administrative Areas (GADM)
Spatial database of the world’s administrative areas (or administrative boundaries)
Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF)
MODIS Landcover 2001-2012. Also more easily available from https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov/
Global Landcover 2000
Global landcover datasets from the European Commission Joint Research Centre Global Environment Monitoring Unit.
Global Terrorism Database
An open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world from 1970 through 2010 (with annual updates planned for the future).
Haiti Data.org
Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX)
Critical and fundamental datasets that support and are relevant to humanitarian actors and operations
HumanitarianInfo.org
Index of Humanitarian Information Centers.
NatureServe
World-wide animal data for download, especially animals of the United States, Canada, and the entire Western Hemisphere. Data focusing on the taxonomy, natural history, distribution, and conservation status of vertebrates and selected invertebrates.
NOAA Nights at Light Data – DMSP & VIIRS
Global Nights at Light Data.
Pacific Disaster Center, Global Hazards Information Network (GHIN)
Open Street Map
World-wide crowd sourcing street data.
SERVIR’s MesoStor
Mesoamerica’s free data delivery system that allows online access to digital map data of the region (satellite imagery, roads and river coverages, etc.). MesoStor is part of the SERVIR “One Stop Shop” for regional data, dynamic maps, decision support, and interactive visualizations.
Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Digital Elevation Model
30 meter global digital elevation model
UNEP GEO Data Portal
Source for data sets used by UNEP and its partners in the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report and other integrated environment assessments. Its online database holds more than 500 different variables, as national, subregional, regional and global statistics or as geospatial data sets (maps), covering themes like Freshwater, Population, Forests, Emissions, Climate, Disasters, Health and GDP. Display them on-the-fly as maps, graphs, data tables or download the data in different formats.
UN Data
Global data portal of some UN Data. Includes list of links to Country Data Services.
United Nations Statistics Division
From the website: “The website of the 2010 World Population and Housing Census Programme facilitates the international exchange and sharing of knowledge and information on census taking, as well as provision of guidance to countries, and monitoring progress on the implementation of the Programme.”
U.S. Census Bureau International Programs
International data base created and maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau.
WorlPop
World population raster data for South America, Africa and Asia to support development, disaster response and health applications