World Bank Open Data
Compare development indicators across places and years, with definitions and source notes.
Explore the original source- Published by
- World Bank
- Getting in
- Free browsing and downloads; check the license attached to each dataset.
- What you can work with
- CSV · Excel · XML · JSON API
- Links and access checked
A good place to start
Open life expectancy at birth, total (SP.DYN.LE00.IN); choose two countries and a shared year.
What you can find
World Bank Open Data is a doorway into collections of indicators, not one uniform spreadsheet. Country pages and indicator pages help you explore patterns in development. The life-expectancy indicator includes source information, a definition, download choices, and a license label alongside the numbers.
Try this first
Choose two places you know and one you do not. Open that indicator and find a year with a value for all three. Write one sentence describing a difference, then one question the figures cannot answer. Keep the indicator code in your notes so you can return to exactly the same measure. A blank cell belongs in your notes as missing, not zero.
Access and reuse
Browsing is free. Downloads and an API support different scales of work; the developer documentation explains machine access. Read the dataset's own license and the World Bank terms before republishing a collection.
Provenance
Credit the named underlying provider as well as the World Bank. Preserve the definition, unit, observation year, and retrieval date. When comparing two downloads, check whether revisions explain a changed value before telling a story about the world.
What to watch for
- Latest available years can differ between countries.
- National averages hide differences within a country.
- Some indicators have third-party restrictions or revised historical values.