Embedded Files
If you are not familiar with data sources, it is best to start with global sources that may contain regional data that you are looking for. You may also want to compare the same data on global sources with regional sources to minimize biased or even inaccurate information.
General Data Repositories
General Data Repositories
These are large, open data repositories hosting academic, governmental or even personal datasets. Each repository may host up to thousands of datasets, but users are advised to pay attention to the credibility of individual dataset providers.
Google Dataset Search FREE
https://datasetsearch.research.google.com/
figshare FREE
Mendeley Data FREE
General Resources
General Resources
World Bank Open Data FREE
Collected and managed by World Bank, data sets on World Bank Open Data are very diverse with an intended focus on people's well-being. Data sets can be pulled out by country, topic or indicator, with various download options:
Agriculture & rural development, climate change
External debt, infrastructure, social development
Gender issues, health, poverty, etc.
UNdata FREE
Managed by the United Nations, UNdata serves as a single point to retrieve selected data collected by UN's numerous departments. After clicking "Datamarts," you can retrieve data sets by topic or departmental source.
Crime, education, refugees
Energy, environment, food and agriculture
Health, HIV/AIDS, tourism, etc.
Nevertheless, individual UN departmental websites oftentimes provide much more data on relevant topics. For example:
ESCAP Online Statistical Database FREE
https://dataexplorer.unescap.org/
Managed by Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific of the United Nations, ESCAP provides a regional perspective on development issues in Asia and the Pacific. Data comparison between countries is available. Hong Kong and Macau data are also included.
FAOSTAT FREE
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/
Managed by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAOSTAT provides extensive food and agriculture data for over 245 countries and territories from 1961. Data comparison between countries are also available.
UN Comtrade Database FREE
Managed by Comtrade Labs of the United Nations, UN Comtrade provides free access to extensive official international trade statistics and relevant analytical tables.
Social Sciences Data
Social Sciences Data
Our World in Data FREE
Being a digital project managed by the University of Oxford, Our World in Data takes a scholarly approach to data collection, sharing and discussion. Through exploring various topics, the website aims to give a global overview of changes in living conditions over a very long run.
Population, Health, Food...
Work & life, War & peace, Violence & rights...
Technology, Media, Culture...
ICPSR: Find & Analyze Data FREE
https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/
Different from ordinary public data archives, this data archive managed by Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research reviews and enhances deposited data sets before making them publicly available. This archive contains more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences.
Business & Financial Data
Business & Financial Data
Factiva SUBSCRIBED BY LIBRARY
https://go.openathens.net/redirector/hkbu.edu.hk?url=http%3A%2F%2Fglobal.factiva.com%2Fen%2Fsess%2Flogin.asp%3FXSID%3DS000GzkZsjr2sVo5DEs5DEpNp6tNDaqMTRyMHn0YqYvMq382rbRQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQQAA%26cookie%3Don
Factiva is a research and current awareness platform that provides access to a large archive of news (including The Wall Street Journal) and business information such as company and industry snapshots. Financial statements and market quotes are available for downloading.
Statista SUBSCRIBED BY LIBRARY
https://go.openathens.net/redirector/hkbu.edu.hk?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.statista.com%2F
Statista provides access to statistics gathered by market researchers, trade organizations, scientific publications, and governments on over 600 industries. It is a comprehensive portal for business and industry statistical data.
FRED Economic Data FREE
Developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, this website provides access to graphs of 816,000 US and worldwide time series from 108 sources. Users can also build US data maps using its affiliated GEOFRED tool.
ILOSTAT FREE
Managed by the International Labour Organization, ILOSTAT provides global labor data including labor force, unemployment, working time, safety and health at work.
IMF Data PARTIALLY FREE
Managed by International Monetary Fund, IMF Data provides various types of global financial data or statistics. However, not all data sets are freely available online. Highlighted free data sets include International Financial Statistics, Government Finance Statistics, and Direction of Trade Statistics.
Wharton Research Data Services FREE
https://wrds-www.wharton.upenn.edu/
Managed by the University of Pennsylvania, WRDS provides extensive data on accounting, banking, economics, and finance. Although data is freely available to the public, users have to register for an account in order to get access to the data.
Media & Advertising Data
Media & Advertising Data
WARC: Data SUBSCRIBED BY LIBRARY
https://openathens.warc.com/login/?entityID=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.hkbu.edu.hk%2Fopenathens
WARC gives data on advertising expenditure, media consumption, and media costs by channel and country. Only statistical reports and charts are provided without raw data.
Scientific Data
Scientific Data
RCSB Protein Data Bank FREE
Co-managed by Rutgers University and University of California, San Diego, RCSB PDB is an open access digital data resource in biology and medicine, providing access to over 147,000 sets of 3D structure data for large biological molecules.
TOXNET: Toxicology Data Network FREE
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/toxnet/index.html
Managed by U.S. National Library of Medicine, TOXNET is a group of databases covering chemicals and drugs, diseases and the environment, environmental health, toxicology, etc. It also provides links to PubMed.
Page updated
Report abuse