Sources of statistics

Key starting points

NationMaster www.nationmaster.com
This site is produced by Rapid Intelligence Pty Ltd, an online publishing company based in Sydney, Australia. It repackages information from many different sources including the CIA World Factbook, World Bank, WHO, FAO (there is a very long list of sources on the web site). You can compare data in a variety of ways. For example you can select your own specific countries, a region, or an economic group such as OPEC and then a category and statistic for that category. The sources used for each comparison are listed and you can quickly change from totals to per capita figures, which are often more meaningful.

Zanran www.zanran.com
Zanran extracts and indexes numerical data presented as tables, charts and images in PDF reports, spreadsheets and ordinary web pages. You can simply type in your search terms but there are additional options for narrowing down the search by location of the web server, specifying an individual site, selecting a time period and limiting by file type. The results page lists the files it has found with an extract highlighting the content containing your terms

To the left of each entry is a thumbnail. Moving the cursor over the thumbnail brings up a preview of the page containing the relevant chart, table or image. This enables you to immediately assess the relevance of the data without having to download and go through a lengthy document. If you click on the thumbnail or the title to view the whole document you have to register (free of charge) as copies of the indexed documents are stored by Zanran. If you prefer to go to the original document click on the URL button attached to the summary of the page and click on the link that is then revealed. Unfortunately, you may see “page not found” especially if it is on a UK government department web site. Many of these have now been closed and their content archived making it difficult to track them down. Registering with Zanran is by far the easier option. Also, rather than deluge you with documents from a single site, as Google all too often does, Zanran gives you a link telling you if and how many other results are available on a site.

Statista - The Statistics Portal for Market Data, Market Research and Survey Results www.statista.com
Statista aggregates statistical data on over 600 international industries from more than 18,000 sources, including market researchers, trade organizations, scientific journals, and government databases. There is a limited amount of free information for which you have to register, and a free Chart of the Day. The premium account for an individual user is USD 49/month and runs for a minimum of 12 months. If you no longer wish to use Statista you must cancel your subscription before the 12 months is up, otherwise the subscription is automatically renewed. The corporate subscription is USD 199.90/month. Again the subscription runs for 12 months. A free trial is available for the corporate service but not for individual users. Prices for universities, libraries and education are available on request.

Information can be browsed by topic (http://www.statista.com/topics/) or searched using keywords. The data is displayed in the format Statista thinks is the most appropriate for the statistic but you can change the representation if you wish. There are also options for downloading the data in various formats and links to the original source. Additional information is provided on the source and includes the title of the original document, the publisher, publication date, time period covered by the survey and the geographical regions covered. Statista also adds notes such as definitions of terms used in the original report and observations on anomalies or possible missing data.

Google Public Data Explorer www.google.com/publicdata/home
The Public Data explorer "makes large datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand." Datasets include the OECD, IMF, World Bank, and several US sources. As well as viewing the data and creating charts within Google you can also click through to the website that is the source of the data .

International

Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations www.fao.org
An incredible amount of information is available free of charge from the Statistical Databases. For example, you can find the total annual import and export figures of olive oil in value and quantity for one or more countries from 1961. No product names are mentioned, though, and you cannot track the movement of goods between two countries.

International Labour Organization www.ilo.org

International Monetary Fund www.imf.org
Information on the IMF and its publications. Some such as The World Economic Outlook, Working Papers (starting with WP/97/01), IMF Staff Country Reports and International Capital Markets are available in full and free of charge.

International Trade Centre www.intracen.org
The International Trade Centre (ITC) is the technical cooperation agency of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) for operational, enterprise-oriented aspects of trade development. Trade statistics aggregates can be found at www.intracen.org/tradstat/. You can view export and import statistics by product group and country or by country and product group. The data is presented in US dollars and you have to view import and export figures separately. You can also view trade performances of individual countries including national export performances and import profiles.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development www.oecd.org

United Nations Statistics Division - Commodity Trade Statistics Database (COMTRADE) unstats.un.org/unsd/comtrade/
The COMTRADE database of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) covers over 110 reporting countries with time series starting from 1962 (SITC1), 1977 (SITC2) or 1988 (SITC3 correlated to HS codes). You can search for imports or exports of a commodity (keyword, HS or SITC code) between individual countries or a country and the rest of the world. Figures are given as the trade value in US dollars and net weight (kg) and can be viewed as tables and graphs.

The free service allows you to download 50,000 records per data query although there is no limit on the number of data queries.Full access to the database and download facilities is by annual subscription starting at US $121.30 for a single user increasing to $6,065 for multiple users.

World Bank www.worldbank.org

By country

Europe

CISSTAT www.cisstat.com
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995. Countries covered are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan. Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Available in Russian and English.

European Central Bank www.ecb.int
The statistics section includes statistics on the Euro zone from the Monthly Bulletin. Data is available in CSV and PDF format and includes market interest rates, stock market indices and retail bank interest rates.

Eurostat Key Indicators epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home
Key indicators covering a range of topics such as transport, external trade, environment and energy.

UK

The British Population Survey http://www.thebps.co.uk/
The British Population Survey interviews between 6,000 and 8,000 individuals every month (80,000 to 85,000 a year). The interviews are face-to-face in people's own homes and each wave is fully representative of the adult population. It provides answers to questions about how many people fit a specific profile, how they compare with another profile, how it has changed over time, the effect of gender, education, race, single parenthood or other criteria on education, income or employment etc. The British Marketing Survey uses monthly 1000 sub-sample of the core survey looks at how how people react to, and view, marketing communications by media channel and by industry sector. Reports generated from the data are priced but you can download the data for 2008 for both the British Population Survey and the British Marketing Survey free of charge. Updates are priced.

UK National Statistics Publication Hub www.statistics.gov.uk
This site no longer exists and now redirects to http://www.gov.uk/

Office for National Statistics (ONS) www.ons.gov.uk
ONS is the UK's largest independent producer of official statistics and the recognised national statistical institute of the UK. You can browse by theme, regions, publications, data sets or view the release calendar. There is also a keyword search option. The interface is similar to that of the UK National Statistical Publication Hub but searches on the ONS site will find documents published during the last five years.

StatsWales statswales.wales.gov.uk
A free-to-use service that allows you to "view, manipulate, create and download tables from the most detailed official data on Wales". You can run a keyword search on the data or simply browse the Reports folders. The built in search option may be your best bet. You can also select subsets of the data and produce your own tables and charts. If you register you can create your own profile, design and save your reports. There are many options for viewing and manipulating the data on the web site itself and it can seem overwhelming at times. You may prefer to just download the data sets and work on them offline, but if you think you might be a regular user of the this site it is worth working through the tutorials and getting to grips with the StatsWales tools. You can register for e-mail notifications of changes to specific datasets and RSS feeds are also available to alert you to new sets that have been added to the site.

UK Trade Information On-line www.uktradeinfo.com
This is part of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), which was formed by the merger of the UK Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise. The information on the site is now free of charge although you do have to register to access some areas.

There is free trade data down to the eight digit commodity code level. You can use the Interactive Data Tables and build up your own report or view the static tables, for example: Top 20 Products Monthly by SIC - Imports and Exports, Top 25 Trading Partners - Monthly - Imports and Exports, Top 30 Products Quarterly - Imports and Exports - Value and Net Mass. If you choose to use the interactive data tables, I strongly recommend that you download and view the Powerpoint demonstration first.

The Importers' Details section is a database giving details of UK based importers of products from outside of the EU. You can search on company name, product (text or commodity code numeric), county, postcode and year of transaction. There are also EU country profiles and historical exchange rate data for the UK by month going back to September 1999.

Bank of England www.bankofengland.co.uk
The Statistics section includes current and historical base rates (interest rates), exchange rates, domestic and international banking statistics, monetary statistics (includes MO and M4), balance of payments and a database of successive sets of data for series that make up the GDP (total imports, total exports, investment, private consumption, government consumption).

HM Treasury www.hm-treasury.gov.uk
Details of the latest economic indicators, forecasts for the UK economy, GDP deflators and government economic strategy.

Jobstats - IT Jobs Salary Rates and Market Information
www.jobstats.co.uk
Provides a detailed picture of the computing job market in the UK. Graphs and figures show trends in hourly rates and annual salaries. There are also links to job listings pages and a monthly newsletter.

Nomis www.nomisweb.co.uk
Nomis is the Web site for the official UK labour market statistics. It gives access to the most up-to-date and detailed labour market data produced from official sources. Nomis is a free service provided by National Statistics but you have to register for an ID and password in order to access it.

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Austria

STATISTICS AUSTRIA www.statistik.at

Austrian Federal Financing Agency www.oebfa.co.at
Provides information on the economy, federal budget (going back to 1998) and debt statistics. Available in German, French and English.

Austrian Institute of Economic Research www.wifo.ac.at
WIFO analyzes national and international economic trends and supplies short- to medium-term economic forecasts. Some of the data sets are compiled by WIFO, but most of the data are obtained from domestic data producers (such as the Austrian National Bank, the Austrian Central Statistical Office, the Main Association of Austrian Social Security Institutions). The Economic Data Bases contain comprehensive statistical data on the Austrian economy, for example national income, production, foreign trade, the labour market and the financial sector. A selection of tables containing current national and international statistics are freely available. Available in German and English.

Institute of Advanced Studies www.ihs.ac.at
IHS is a private non-profit organization. The IHS Economic Forecasts are freely available (in German only) as are their various report series and newsletters, many of which are in English.

Oesterreichische Nationalbank www.oenb.at
Data on the Austrian economy including interest rates, capital market, public finances and economic indicators. Some information is available in English but some of the more detailed data is in German only.

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Belarus

CISSTAT: Belarus www.cisstat.com/eng/bel.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macro-economic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

Belgium

Statistics Belgium www.statbel.fgov.be
A division of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Statistics inlcude short term inidicators, demographics, industrial production figures, energy, construction and agriculture. A limited amount of information is available in German and English. More detailed information and the publications are available only in Dutch and French.

Federal Planning Bureau www.plan.fgov.be
Economic analyses and forecasts. The FPB. is responsible for carrying out macro-economic forecasting, for evaluating the consequences of economic and social policy decisions and for performing structural analyses mainly on economic, social and environmental issues. Available in Dutch, French and English but some of the data is only available in Dutch and French.

Ministère fédéral de l'Emploi et du Travail (Federal Ministry of Employment and Labour) meta.fgov.be
The Statistics section is available in French and Dutch. Other areas are also available in English and German.

National Bank of Belgium www.bnb.be
Data available includes economic indicators, business survey barometer, consumer survey, foreign trade, National Accounts (Dutch and French only) and a monthly Statistical Bulletin. In French, Dutch, German and English.

Estonia

Bank of Estonia www.bankofestonia.info
An abundance of useful economic and financial data, and news on the economy.

Finland

Statistics Finland www.stat.fi/
In English, Finnish and Swedish.

Georgia

CISSTAT: Georgia www.cisstat.com/eng/georg.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

Germany

Federal Statistical Office www.destatis.de/e_home.htm
In German and English.

Hungary

Hungarian Statistical Office www.ksh.hu/
Selected statistics on Hungary - "Hungary in Figures" - e.g. population, earnings, GDP, Prices, External Trade Turnover covering a range of years.

Ireland

Central Statistics Office www.cso.ie

Moldova

CISSTAT: Moldova www.cisstat.com/eng/mol.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

Netherlands

Statistics Netherlands www.cbs.nl

Norway

Statistics Norway www.ssb.no

Poland

Central Statistical Office of Poland www.stat.gov.pl/gus/index_ENG_HTML.htm
The official statistical office of Poland available in Polish and English. A range of statistical yearbooks are also available in Polish and English.

Polish Market Review www.polishmarket.com
News and newsletters aimed at anyone interested in investing, managing an investment, or marketing a product on the Polish market. Regular columns include demographics of Polish society, information about Polish households, data on the volume of different markets and the amount of foreign investment, analysis of trends and issues that affect the market.

Russia

State Committee of the Russian Federation on Statistics www.gks.ru
Available in Russian and English.

CISSTAT: Russia www.cisstat.com/eng/rus.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

Bank of Russia www.cbr.ru

Slovenia

Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia www.sigov.si/zrs/
Details of their Statistical Yearbook and other publications. Also tables of short term economic indicators giving 4- 5 years broken down monthly and quarterly. There are figures for retail sales, earnings, energy, consumer prices, industrial production, producer and retail price indices, employment , foreign trade and finance.

SKB Banka DD www.skb.si
A financial services group which, in addition to information about the group itself, has put up several pages of summary statistics and economic indicators under the section "About Slovenia".

Sweden

Statistics Sweden www.scb.se

Switzerland

UBS - Switzerland in Figures www.ubs.com/1/e/wealthmanagement/wealth_management_research/ switzerland_in_figures.html
A useful three page PDF summary of Swiss statistics from UBS. It contains more than 1,600 facts and figures on the Swiss economy and each of the cantons, and an international overview of key data. Data includes population, employment, the financial situation, indebtedness, tax levels, and figures on the economy and living standards.

Ukraine

CISSTAT: Ukraine www.cisstat.com/eng/ukr.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

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Asia

Asia and the Pacific in Figures www.unescap.org/stat/statdata/apinfig.htm
Maintained by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, this site has data for 57 countries in HTML and Excel format. Data includes summary statistics on topics such as population, land use, price indices and transport. The data is gleaned from a number of sources; details are available on the Web site.

Armenia

Central Bank of Armenia www.cba.am
Economic indicators can be found under Publications & Statistics.

Ministry of Statistics www.armstat.am
Statistical overviews can be found under publications. The information is available in a variety of formats depending on the year in which you are interested.

CISSTAT: Armenia www.cisstat.com/eng/arm.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

Azerbaijan

CISSTAT: Azerbaijan www.cisstat.com/eng/azer.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics www.bbsgov.org

Cambodia

National Institute of Statistics www.nis.gov.kh

China

National Bureau of Statistics www.stats.gov.cn
The official government statistical office. In Chinese and English.

China Data Center chinadataonline.org
Based at the University of Michigan, the China Data Center "is an international Center designed to advance the study and understanding of China. A primary goal of the Center is the integration of historical, social and natural science data in a geographic information system... Its missions include: to support research in the human and natural components of local, regional and global change; to promote quantitative research on China studies; to promote collaborative research in spatial studies; and to promote the use and sharing of China data in teaching and research."

Some data and information is free but access to the full collection is available only on subscription. Coverage and subscription rates can be found on http://chinadatacenter.org/newcdc/onlinedata.htm

China Statistical Data www.china.org.cn/e-company/
This service repackages some of the data from the National Bureau of Statistics. Available in Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese and Esperanto.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Census & Statistics Department www.info.gov.hk/censtatd/
Click on the Site Map link to get to the English version. In Chinese and English.

India

Ministry of Statistics mospi.nic.in

Japan

Bank of Japan www.boj.or.jp
Information on the Bank of Japan and its publications. Various reports on the economy are available here and can be downloaded free of charge but do check the format first: several are available in PDF, MS Word, MS Excel or text files.

Japan Information Network www.jinjapan.org
Events, regional information, statistics from the Census, economics and labour, education and culture, social security, medical care, crime, prices and household expenses, lifestyle, leisure activities.

Statistics Bureau and Statistics Centre www.stat.go.jp
Japan in Figures and Economic and Financial Data from the Japan Management and Co-ordination Agency.

Kazakhstan

CISSTAT: Kazakhstan www.cisstat.com/eng/kaz.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

Kyrgyzstan

CISSTAT: Kyrgyzstan www.cisstat.com/eng/kir.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

Singapore

Statistics Singapore www.singstat.gov.sg

Sri Lanka

Department of Census and Statistics www.statistics.gov.lk

Tajikistan

CISSTAT: Tajikistan www.cisstat.com/eng/tad.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

Thailand

National Statistical Office Thailand www.nso.go.th

Turkey

State Institute of Statistics www.die.gov.tr

Turkmenistan

CISSTAT: Turkmenistan www.cisstat.com/eng/tur.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

Uzbekistan

CISSTAT: Uzbekistan www.cisstat.com/eng/uzb.htm
Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gives macroeconomic data on an annual basis back to 1995.

Oceania

Australia

Australian Bureau Of Statistics www.abs.gov.au
Key national indicators, Statistics by state and searchable by keyword.

Fiji

Fiji Islands Statistics Bureau www.statsfiji.gov.fj

New Zealand

Statistics New Zealand www.stats.govt.nz
Information on publications and services, press releases and New Zealand in Profile statistics (Main trading partners, land use, retail trade, Consumer Price Index, Household Spending per week, Average weekly earnings, Geography, Principle exports and imports, national economy, population, transport), plus some census data.

Papua New Guinea

National Statistical Office of Papua New Guinea www.nso.gov.pg

The Americas

Canada

Statistics Canada www.statcan.ca

Agri-Food Trade Service - Trade Statistics atn-riae.agr.ca/stats/stats-e.htm
Trade statistics on the Canadian agricultural products and food industry. Includes import and export data.

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US

FedWorld www.fedworld.gov

Bureau of Labour Statistics www.bls.gov

US Department of Commerce (STAT-USA) www.stat-usa.gov

US Census Bureau www.census.gov

US Bureau of Justice Statistics www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/

US National Center for Health Statistics www.cdc.gov/nchs/

US National Center for Education Statistics www.ed.gov/NCES/

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Statistics

Key starting points

International

By country

Europe

UK

Austria

Belarus

Belgium

Estonia

Finland

Georgia

Germany

Hungary

Ireland

Moldova

Netherlands

Norway

Poland

Russia

Slovenia

Sweden

Switzerland

Ukraine

Asia

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Bangladesh

Cambodia

China

Hong Kong

India

Japan

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyzstan

Malaysia

Mongolia

Philippines

Republic of Korea

Singapore

Sri Lanka

Tajikistan

Thailand

Turkey

Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan

Oceania

Australia

Fiji

New Zealand

Papua New Guinea

The Americas

Canada

US