About Statistics of the World

Statistics of the World is a free, open data platform that makes global economic and demographic statistics accessible to everyone. We aggregate data from the world's most authoritative statistical organizations — the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, World Health Organization (WHO), Federal Reserve (FRED), European Central Bank (ECB), and United Nations — into a single, searchable platform with interactive charts, country comparisons, and a free public API.

Our Mission

International economic data exists across dozens of different databases, each with its own interface, format, and access method. The IMF publishes GDP data in one place, the World Bank tracks development indicators in another, and the WHO maintains health statistics in yet another. Finding and comparing data across these sources requires significant effort and technical knowledge.

We built Statistics of the World to solve this problem. Our platform brings together 440+ indicators for 218 countries into a unified interface where anyone — students, researchers, journalists, policymakers, investors, or curious citizens — can look up any country, compare economies, and explore global trends without navigating multiple databases or dealing with complex data formats.

Data Sources & Methodology

Every number on this platform traces back to an official international organization — we never estimate or fabricate values. The work we add sits on top of those sources: we reconcile country names, ISO codes, and territorial definitions that differ between the IMF, World Bank, WHO, and UN; we harmonize units and data vintages so figures from different publishers can be compared side by side; we flag whether each value is an observation or a projection; and we write country and indicator analyses that put the numbers in context. When the IMF updates its World Economic Outlook or the World Bank releases new World Development Indicators data, we incorporate those changes into our database, typically within days of publication. Our methodology page documents these decisions in detail.

Statistics of the World is independently built and maintained by a professional economist based in Ottawa, Canada. It is not affiliated with any government or international organization. If you spot an error in any figure, please email us — corrections are usually live within a day.

Data sources used by Statistics of the World
SourceCoverageUpdate Frequency
IMF World Economic OutlookGDP, inflation, unemployment, debt, fiscal balance — 13 core macroeconomic indicatorsBiannual (April, October)
World Bank WDI300+ development indicators: health, education, trade, environment, governanceAnnual (with quarterly updates)
WHO Global Health ObservatoryLife expectancy, mortality, disease, health spending, road safetyAnnual
FRED (Federal Reserve)US interest rates, bond yields, money supply, S&P 500, VIXDaily
Yahoo FinanceStock market indices, commodity prices, currency exchange ratesReal-time (15-min delay)
ECBEuropean exchange ratesDaily
United NationsPopulation projections, trade flows, demographic dataAnnual

Free API

All data is available programmatically through our REST API. The API returns structured JSON and requires no authentication for basic usage (1,000 requests/day per IP). Free API keys add usage tracking and a dashboard, and paid tiers raise the limits. We believe data should be accessible not just to humans browsing a website, but to applications, researchers running analyses, and AI systems that need structured economic data.

View API documentation →

Contact

For questions, data requests, partnerships, or media inquiries, reach us at contact@statisticsoftheworld.com. Follow us on X (@sotwdata) and Bluesky for daily economic data highlights.