Statistics - Western Illinois University

Libraries

Statistics and Information on Countries of the World

Detailed

Cursory | Topical | Trade | Other

U.S. Census Bureau International Data Base

Demographic and socio-economic statistics from all countries--some data back to 1950. There is summary data for each country or choose from a list of tables that include population breakdowns, vital rates, lifetables, migration rate, marital status, contraceptive use, religious affiliation, language, and literacy. Includes options for browser display and downloading into spreadsheets, and also a user-configurable option.

Area Handbooks Series: Country Studies

Detailed demographic, geographic, historical, political, industrial, and economic information from the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. The library has many of these in hardcopy; search WestCat for call numbers.

Eurostat (EU)

The premier statistical site for the European Union. Topics include population, economy, energy, trade, and government finance; more.

Eurobarometer (EU)

40+ years of public opinion analysis.

Cursory

U.S. Bilateral Relations Fact Sheets

Foreign relations information along with some history and U.S. policy towards each country. These are written by the State Department's regional bureaus.

CIA World Fact Book

Cursory economic data for foreign countries including population, GDP, unemployment, imports/exports, budget, type of government, etc. Annual. Most recent edition kept at 4th floor public service desk.
GOVPUBS. PREX 3.10:N 21/

Atlapedia

This website has brief histories of countries, maps and cursory statistics on population and trade.

World Atlas & Map Library (Infoplease)

You can view maps of regions and countries, read country profiles or find world statistics and rankings.

NationMaster.com

This fun tool culls data from official sources and surveys and allows country comparisons on all sorts of topics.

Topical Statistics on Countries

World Factbook of Criminal Justice Systems (BJS)

These country reports describe the history of legal systems and penal systems, as well as give crime data for their respective countries.

Foreign Trade Statistics (Census)

Import/export statistics - not country specific.

International Labor Comparisons (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Hourly pay by sector and workforce characteristics of various countries.

IMF eLibrary Data (IMF)

This database contains time series data for more than 200 countries and areas back to 1948. The different options include browse, search or you can build your own tables and select display variables from 32,000 time series.

The World Bank

This website includes data, research, projects and publications.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Lots of information starting in 1961.

FAOSTAT

Everything about food: production, trade, prices, food security, etc. You can compare data from different countries, download data, browse or search.

Trade Statistics

International Trade and Market Access Data (WTO)

This website provides access to statistics on trade in merchandise and commercial services, tariffs, etc. You can also download the latest annual edition (or back to 2001) of International Trade Statistics, among other publications.

Foreign Trade (Census Bureau)

This website has trade highlights, statistics, regulations, codes and forms for exporters.

The Virtual World Trade Reference Room (Dept. of Commerce)

This is a good list of available online data sources.

Industry Trade Data and Analysis (ITA)

This website from the Office of Trade Policy and Analysis, a division of the International Trade Administration, has data on exports to foreign countries from states and metro areas, industry-specific trade data, and statistics on exporters.

TradeStats Express (ITA)

This nifty tool allows you to pick the data you want (import, export or trade balance - state or national) and the item, then it maps the current year data and provides the report for the years selected. Some data coverage starts in 1989.