The new site at UN Data allows anyone to access the United Nations Data Access System. This online, easy-to-use database was created by the UN in order to provide current, relevant, and reliable statistics to the whole world, for free. Using UN Data, you can access statistical information on populations, demographics, trade, commodities, agriculture, employment, the environment, industry, education, tourism, and much more.
For many people, the first source for data is a Google search or a Wikipedia entry, however educational institutions and news agencies generally frown on using data from these sources, especially considering some of the inaccuracies found on Wikipedia not too long ago.
But now, students, journalists, and everyone else can access data straight from the source - the actual statistics published by the UN.
Underneath the search box on the homepage are a few popular searches, based on what users are searching for the most. You can either click on those or enter in your own keywords to begin.
For example, to see data about a country, you just enter in the country's name and click "Search." The search result will take you to a landing page where some general information about the country is provided, like population, GDP, life expectancy, etc. You can click the link to "view full profile" to get the full details of that country's statistics.
To the left, is a box where you can apply filters to your search by specifying that you want to include or exclude certain information from your search.
Below the country's profile are all the search results for that country. Each result has a "Download" link to download the data, but there is also a handy "Preview" link which will open a small window displaying the data, so you don't have to navigate away from the page you're on to see if that data is what you were looking for. Another link, "Explore," allows you to delve into to related data sources around that topic.
You can do more than search for data on specific countries or regions, though. You can also search for data about global statistics, like greenhouse gas emissions or global solar production statistics (well, that's what I looked up).
What's great about the UN Data site is not just the ability to access this huge database of statistics (currently 55 million+ records), but the well-designed way that such massive amounts of data have been provided to the public. Anyone can use this database - school kids, techies, even mom and dad. This is one site that is definitely worth a look.
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wow, thanks for this post. This is a great resource for education, social org and bloggers. We can trust the resource, very reliable. If they provide API, that would be disruptive..
Posted by: saran | March 6, 2008 5:37 PMFrom what I've seen so far is that this amazing resource of data - especially for creating some very interesting visualizations - is sorely missing an API... Even hackable URLs are obfuscated.
Posted by: Andy Edmonds | March 7, 2008 4:50 AM"We can trust the resource, very reliable."
Well, that would depend on whether or not you think the UN is a trustworthy organization wouldn't it?
Given the recent record the reliability of the UN is not exactly 100%.
Always remember that the trustworthiness of data can rise or fall depending on who or what is doing the input.
The controlling acronym in computing and data bases is GIGO.
Garbage In Garbage Out
Posted by: Vanderleun | March 7, 2008 8:31 AM"... educational institutions and news agencies generally frown on using data from these sources, especially considering some of the inaccuracies found on Wikipedia not too long ago."
Well, I am sorry to say that the automatic trust you put forward in UN data as opposed to /wikipedia is a little naive. Let's have a few hundred thousand people pour over the UN data for a few years and see what happens. I can say with 100% certainty that more than a few "inaccuracies" will be discovered.
These are two big clues staring us in the face: "missing an API... Even hackable URLs are obfuscated."
This is not done if what you are looking for in openness and transparency.
Posted by: vanderleun | March 7, 2008 8:36 AMThe potential usefulness is compromised by the lack of (gotta say it) an API.
If we can't extract, manipulate and verify the data it's only a bit more useful than a paper reference.
Posted by: Brian | March 7, 2008 10:47 AMVanderleun, I trust UN because,
It collects data from 200+ national statistical offices, international agencies, 60+ years of data, 90% of the word trade information. Then they combine all data in their datawarehouse, and available to users for FREE. UN is not a business organization, they are not listed in NYSE. They are not displaying any advertisement, even if they do that would be social ads.
“Given the recent record the reliability of the UN is not exactly 100%.”
yeah I agree, we can’t get 100% accuracy but Where else we can get reliable data? Do you want 100% ? hhhmmm There is error % in everything. We may get more accuracy when we have fully connected world and infrastructure available to every village in the world.
“trustworthiness of data can rise or fall depending on who or what is doing the input”
Posted by: saran | March 7, 2008 8:14 PM70 billion records downloaded in the last 4 years. If it is not reliable why downloading numbers are increasing rapidly?
Interesting feedback from the UN Data Team
Thank you for your email. For the time being we are not planning to implement API, web services or RDF format for download as we do not have enough capacity and resources for this. As soon as we can secure resources for upgrading our infrastructure, programming and maintenance, we will provide these interfaces.
I sympathize with the lack of resources. I do have a feeling this would be something that those wacky boys 'n girls at Google would toss at an engineer or three and have out the door as a beta in a month or two.
Posted by: Brian | March 7, 2008 11:20 PMLooks like a great tool. Just want to let you guys know I have an Google API key at my website, http://www.wordpartnersink.com. T
Posted by: Starting a Small Business | March 11, 2008 10:37 PMImpressive. And they did put some effort into usability (a serious problem in most STAT apps I used). The name is a bit UNfortunate, though :)
Posted by: Marcin Grodzicki | March 12, 2008 6:47 AM