{"id":6304,"date":"2016-06-21T16:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T16:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/?p=6304"},"modified":"2023-07-31T14:33:10","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T14:33:10","slug":"open-data-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html","title":{"rendered":"Top 10 Open Data Resources Online"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a lot of hype around big data these days. And it isn\u2019t any wonder with everything going digital. We\u2019ve been generating a large mass amount of data that\u2019s becoming more and more valuable.<\/p>\n<p>Think of publicly available and <a href=\"https:\/\/okfn.org\/opendata\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">open data<\/a>.\u00a0 You may be asking <a href=\"http:\/\/opendatahandbook.org\/guide\/en\/why-open-data\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">why is it so important<\/a>? Using open or publicly available data can be extremely useful. Some examples include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Analyzing global trends<\/li>\n<li>Measuring the efficiency of government policies<\/li>\n<li>Innovating a new service<\/li>\n<li>Improving your company\u2019s products<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Because of the wide range of applications, not just data scientists, but journalists, marketers, business professionals, and even freelancers, are learning how to access, clean and interpret raw data.<\/p>\n<p>While you may already have access to <a href=\"http:\/\/searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com\/essentialguide\/Guide-to-big-data-analytics-tools-trends-and-best-practices\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">data analytics tools<\/a> or a topic to research, all that may be missing are the big data sources to work with. Wondering where to find statistical data? Below is a list of databases you can start with.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. The World Factbook <\/strong>&#8211;The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">CIA<\/a> website has an open source library where you can find its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/the-world-factbook\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">World Factbook<\/a>, which offers the public opendata on 267 countries on topics ranging from history and government to geography and military.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Amazon Web Services<\/strong> &#8212;<a href=\"http:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/datasets\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Amazon Web Services<\/a> offers a suite of cloud computing services for database, computing, storage and analytic solutions to name a few. AWS also hosts a number of public datasets, which you can access. You will need to have an AWS account or access to its command line tools.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Open Government Data<\/strong>\u2014Looking for data from major governments? You can search through data available publicly from the Governments of <a href=\"http:\/\/open.canada.ca\/en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Canada<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.data.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">USA<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/data.gov.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">UK<\/a>. The official portal for European data &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/data.europa.eu\/euodp\/en\/data\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">data.europa.eu<\/a> &#8211; can give you access to a range of data produced by member countries of the European Union.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Open Data Network<\/strong> \u2013 The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.opendatanetwork.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Open Data Network<\/a>, launched by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.socrata.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"broken_link\">Socrata.com<\/a> in 2014, is an online data catalogue that makes finding the data you need as easy and familiar as finding data with Google. Its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.socrata.com\/blog\/easier-data-exploration-open-data-network\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"broken_link\">latest enhancements<\/a> include updates for elements like autosuggestion and easier mobile navigation. This site covers all major US regions including public data sources for areas like finance, health, infrastructure, education and social services to name a few.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. Google Public Data Explorer<\/strong>&#8211; What better place to explore datasets than on Google? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/publicdata\/directory\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Google Public Data Explorer<\/a> makes it easy for anyone to access and interact with public data from international organizations and academic institutions. You can upload, share and visualize datasets. Here\u2019s an overview to get an idea of <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/AM6w_tUlIn4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">how to use Google Public Data Explorer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6. DBpedia<\/strong> &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.dbpedia.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">DBpedia<\/a> is a crowd-sourced effort to pull structured data from Wikipedia into an accessible database form on the web. According to the site, the advantages of the <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.dbpedia.org\/about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">DBpedia knowledgebase<\/a> are that \u201cit covers many domains; it represents real community agreement; it automatically evolves as Wikipedia changes, and it is truly multilingual.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>7. Worldbank.org<\/strong>\u2014Made up of five international organizations, the <a href=\"http:\/\/data.worldbank.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">World Bank Group<\/a> is the largest development bank in the world, working towards ending poverty and shared prosperity. The organization offers \u201cfree and open access to data about development in countries around the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>8. UNData<\/strong>&#8212;<a href=\"http:\/\/data.un.org\/Default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">UNData<\/a> is an internet based data service from which you can access datasets that include statistics from countries that are part of the United Nations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>9. World Census Open Data\u2014<\/strong>Need\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/census.okfn.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">census<\/a> data from other countries? Get census results from other places around the globe like Argentina, New Zealand, Romania, and Egypt. This source is valuable for those gathering geographical or localized statistics. In addition, you can find census data for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.census.gov\/data.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">USA<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.statcan.gc.ca\/start-debut-eng.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Statistics Canada<\/a> in the linked sources for easy access.<\/p>\n<p><strong>10. Open Data Portals<\/strong> \u2013At <a href=\"http:\/\/dataportals.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Dataportals.org<\/a> you can find a curated list of open data resource portals around the world. It will help you start broadly and then narrow down your search by location. With 519 portals, as of this writing, the site welcomes additions or feedback to create one of the most widely curated free public data sources online that every user can benefit from.<\/p>\n<p>Dealing with datasets can get overwhelming. You can expect your data to be disorganized and unruly. And as easy as these sites are to visit, be warned that you may come across hard to access formats requiring you to first convert a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/pdf-ocr\/\">scanned PDF to Word<\/a> before being able to use it. But don\u2019t get discouraged. The potential of that data is unlimited.<\/p>\n<p>Did we miss any? Add your own main sources to this collection\u2014the more on this list, the better!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a lot of hype around big data these days. And it isn\u2019t any wonder with everything going digital. We\u2019ve been generating a large mass amount of data that\u2019s becoming more and more valuable. Think of publicly available and open data.\u00a0 You may be asking why is it so important? Using open or publicly available &#8230; <a title=\"Top 10 Open Data Resources Online\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html\" aria-label=\"More on Top 10 Open Data Resources Online\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[335,319,232,336,316,205,42,34],"class_list":["post-6304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5-top-tech-lists","tag-big-data","tag-business-intelligence","tag-data-analysis","tag-data-science","tag-data-visualization","tag-resources","tag-web-search","tag-web-tools"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Top 10 Open Data Resources Online<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wondering where you can find free public data sources? Check out our collection of 10 open data sources which you can access online for research or analysis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Top 10 Open Data Resources Online\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wondering where you can find free public data sources? Check out our collection of 10 open data sources which you can access online for research or analysis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PDF Blog | Investintech PDF Solutions\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-06-21T16:00:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-07-31T14:33:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Reena\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@able2extract\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@able2extract\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Reena\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/9d21ba7980d32dbd36069a4878f8e409\"},\"headline\":\"Top 10 Open Data Resources Online\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-21T16:00:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-07-31T14:33:10+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html\"},\"wordCount\":759,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"big data\",\"business intelligence\",\"data analysis\",\"data science\",\"data visualization\",\"resources\",\"web search\",\"web tools\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Top Tech Lists\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html\",\"name\":\"Top 10 Open Data Resources Online\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-21T16:00:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-07-31T14:33:10+00:00\",\"description\":\"Wondering where you can find free public data sources? Check out our collection of 10 open data sources which you can access online for research or analysis\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Top 10 Open Data Resources Online\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"PDF Blog | Investintech PDF Solutions\",\"description\":\"Everything PDF\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"PDF Blog | Investintech PDF Solutions\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Investintech-apryse-logo-w270.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Investintech-apryse-logo-w270.webp\",\"width\":270,\"height\":40,\"caption\":\"PDF Blog | Investintech PDF Solutions\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/x.com\/able2extract\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/9d21ba7980d32dbd36069a4878f8e409\",\"name\":\"Reena\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/aceff76f1b124f7ffb271de50b78f12a7599655c7087ea3a656b61cf9a89c376?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/aceff76f1b124f7ffb271de50b78f12a7599655c7087ea3a656b61cf9a89c376?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Reena\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Top 10 Open Data Resources Online","description":"Wondering where you can find free public data sources? Check out our collection of 10 open data sources which you can access online for research or analysis","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Top 10 Open Data Resources Online","og_description":"Wondering where you can find free public data sources? Check out our collection of 10 open data sources which you can access online for research or analysis","og_url":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html","og_site_name":"PDF Blog | Investintech PDF Solutions","article_published_time":"2016-06-21T16:00:03+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-07-31T14:33:10+00:00","author":"Reena","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@able2extract","twitter_site":"@able2extract","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html"},"author":{"name":"Reena","@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/9d21ba7980d32dbd36069a4878f8e409"},"headline":"Top 10 Open Data Resources Online","datePublished":"2016-06-21T16:00:03+00:00","dateModified":"2023-07-31T14:33:10+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html"},"wordCount":759,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#organization"},"keywords":["big data","business intelligence","data analysis","data science","data visualization","resources","web search","web tools"],"articleSection":["Top Tech Lists"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html","url":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html","name":"Top 10 Open Data Resources Online","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-06-21T16:00:03+00:00","dateModified":"2023-07-31T14:33:10+00:00","description":"Wondering where you can find free public data sources? Check out our collection of 10 open data sources which you can access online for research or analysis","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/archives\/6304-open-data-resources.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Top 10 Open Data Resources Online"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/","name":"PDF Blog | Investintech PDF Solutions","description":"Everything PDF","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#organization","name":"PDF Blog | Investintech PDF Solutions","url":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Investintech-apryse-logo-w270.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Investintech-apryse-logo-w270.webp","width":270,"height":40,"caption":"PDF Blog | Investintech PDF Solutions"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/able2extract"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/9d21ba7980d32dbd36069a4878f8e409","name":"Reena","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/aceff76f1b124f7ffb271de50b78f12a7599655c7087ea3a656b61cf9a89c376?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/aceff76f1b124f7ffb271de50b78f12a7599655c7087ea3a656b61cf9a89c376?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Reena"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6304"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10627,"href":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304\/revisions\/10627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}