Getting Started
The Data Catalog is designed to make World Bank's development data easy to find, download, use, and share. It includes data from the World Bank's microdata, finances and energy data platforms, as well as datasets from the open data catalog. There are different ways to access and download datasets.
What is Data Catalog?
The Data Catalog is a project to provide a more effective means for capture, acquisition, curation, access and use of development-Data Catalog data throughout the World Bank Group. The goal is to maximize the value and investment in data by increasing the potential for the data to be shared and reused, to minimize transaction costs in finding relevant data and data methodologies, and to prevent duplication. The project builds on existing expertise and resources such as the Microdata Library,Open Data Catalog and GFDRR.
The Data Catalog provides a “One-Stop Shop” for development data produced, acquired or used by the World Bank in accordance with the Bank Procedure for Development Dataset Acquisition, Archiving and Dissemination, and the Guidance on Data Acquisition and Archiving. This includes metadata for datasets from other catalogs such as the Microdata Library, EnergyData.Info, Finances and World Bank Open Data API. Where needed, the Data Catalog also serves as a data storage repository, providing long-term storage for World Bank development data.
Search Bar
The simplest way to look for data is to use the search box at the top of the page.
- Use keywords (dataset, indicator or country name) to find relevant data
- Data Catalog matches these keywords to terms found in the Titles, Descriptions, Countries, Regions, and Tags. For example search using keywords "water", "gdp"
All Data
To browse all datasets, click on the “Data” menu item at the top right of the page. This will take you to the catalog page where you can continue searching or filtering datasets.
Catalog Page
The catalog page provides a list of datasets returned by the current search. The original source catalog for a dataset is indicated by the colored icon to the left of each dataset record. The type of resources available in the dataset is also displayed in the “pills” below each dataset record.
Filtering
Another way to find data is by filtering. Filter datasets by convenient facets (data type, license, region, country, resource type)
- The facet options can be found on the left side of the catalog page. Multiple facets can be selected simultaneously to filter datasets. The available facets are: Countries and Economies, Source Catalog, Collections, Resource Type, License.
Metadata and Resources
Metadata (information) and resources (files or links) for each dataset can be found on its dataset detail page.
- Metadata (information) and resources (files or links) for each dataset can be found on its dataset detail page.
- The Overview tab provides direct access to resources with either direct download or links to external sites where the data is located.-
- For some tabular resources, an API is also provided, allowing programmatic access to the underlying data.
- If a dataset has associated indicators (variables or attributes) defined, their metadata is available on the Indicators tab. The Citations tab contains a list of publications that have cited this dataset.
