Data

Data guides, datasets, EU open data, official documents and archives, and GIS data sources for political science research and teaching.

Note that some sources require memberships or have restrictions on use. Please contact the library for help.

Current affairs & news

• NYU Current News Research Guide
  • Detailed guide for activating New York Times and Wall Street Journal accounts through NYU Libraries.

Guides

• Data Archives - Data Sources - Research Guides at New York University
• Political Science Data - Political Science - Research Guides at University of Michigan Library
• Research datasets for secondary analysis - Data resources for social science - Research Guides at Virginia Tech
• Recommended Websites for European Studies — Syracuse University Libraries’ starting points for European Studies research.

Teaching/learning data

• Datasets for Teaching and Learning — NC State University Libraries.
• OpenIntro

Datasets

Highlight:

• A dataset with political datasets GitHub repo
  • How To Download Single Files From a GitHub Repository
  • How to Download GitHub Repositories (Whole)

More datasets, in alphabetical order:

• African Statistical Yearbook (AfDB) — Annual economic, demographic, and development statistics for African countries.
• Arab Barometer — Public opinion survey data on political and social attitudes in the Arab world.
• Arab Center Washington DC – Public Opinion Surveys — Survey datasets and reports focused on the Middle East.
• CESSDA Data Catalogue (Consortium on European Social Science Data Archives) — Central catalogue of European social science datasets across national archives.
• Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Articles 2000–2020 — Corpus of speeches and official statements from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Harvard Dataverse.
• CLOSER Studies — UK longitudinal studies on health, education, and social outcomes.
• DataCite Commons — Search engine for research datasets with DOIs across repositories.
• Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS Program) — Internationally comparable data on health, fertility, and population.
• Dryad — Open-access repository for research datasets.
• Eurobarometer — Public opinion surveys across European Union countries.
• The European Repository of Cyber Incidents (EuRepoC) — Independent research consortium tracking and analyzing cyber operations, targets, threat actors, and attributions.
• European Social Survey (ESS) — Cross-national survey data on attitudes and demographics in Europe.
• Eurostat — European Union datasets.
• General Social Survey (GSS) — Long-running U.S. survey of social attitudes and demographics.
• Google Dataset Search — Search tool indexing datasets across thousands of repositories.
• Harvard Dataverse — Open repository for research datasets across disciplines.
• Health and Retirement Study (HRS) — Longitudinal U.S. data on aging, health, and retirement.
• Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) — Open datasets on humanitarian crises and development.
• ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) — Major archive of social science datasets (many require institutional access).
• Indices of Social Development (ISD) — Country-level indicators on social inclusion and institutional quality.
• Institute of International Finance – MENAP & Central Asia — Macroeconomic and financial data for MENAP and Central Asia regions.
• International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) — Cross-national survey data on social science topics.
• IPUMS (USA) — Harmonized U.S. census and survey microdata.
• IPUMS International — Harmonized international census microdata.
• OpenAIRE — European open science platform for datasets and research outputs.
• Penn World Table (PWT) — Cross-country economic and national accounts data.
• Polity Project — Data on political regimes and regime change.
• re3data – Registry of Research Data Repositories — Global directory of research data repositories.
• Simmons OAD Data Repositories Wiki — Curated list of open-access data repositories by subject.
• Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) — Detailed U.S. household finance data.
• U.S. Census Bureau — U.S. population, housing, and demographic data.
• UAE Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre (FCSC) — Official national statistics for the UAE.
• UCS Satellite Database — Union of Concerned Scientists database of operational satellites orbiting Earth, detailing owner, purpose, and orbital technical data.
• UN Data — United Nations statistical databases across many domains.
• UN ESCWA Statistics — Economic and social data focused on Western Asia.
• World Values Survey (WVS) — Cross-national survey data on values, beliefs, and social attitudes.

European Union open data

• data.europa.eu — The EU’s official portal for open data from EU institutions and European countries.
• CELLAR SPARQL and REST access — Machine access to EU law and publications held by the EU Publications Office.

Documents & archives

• European Commission Press Corner — Commission press releases, speeches, and statements, searchable by date and topic.
• European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) — Independent briefings, research studies, and policy analyses prepared for Members of the European Parliament.
• Council of the European Union Public Register — Official register for searching and accessing unclassified documents produced by the Council of the European Union.
• Arctic Council Open Access Repository — Reports, declarations, and other documents from the Arctic Council.
• UNDOCS — Stable links to official UN documents by document symbol.

GIS and geospatial data resources

• American Panorama — Historical atlas of the United States from the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond, with interactive maps of redlining, forced migration, and elections.
• Ancient World Mapping Center GIS Data — Historical and archaeological GIS datasets.
• CURIOSity Digital Collections (Harvard) — Digitized maps and geospatial collections.
• David Rumsey Historical Map Collection — High-resolution historical maps.
• DIVA-GIS — Free GIS data (administrative boundaries, roads, etc.).
• Europeana – Maps and Geography — Cultural heritage maps and spatial resources.
• GADM Administrative Area Maps — Global administrative boundary shapefiles.
• Geofabrik OpenStreetMap Extracts — Regularly updated shapefile and OpenStreetMap data extracts by continent, country, and region.
• Latitude and Longitude Finder — Tool for finding geographic coordinates.
• National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) Sea Ice Tools — Interactive data tools and datasets charting Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent, concentration, and historical trends.
• NYU UltraViolet (Spatial Data Repository collection) — Academic geospatial datasets. These replace NYU’s Spatial Data Repository, which was discontinued in September 2026.
• Princeton Digital Maps and Geospatial Data — Geospatial datasets and historical maps.
• Projection Wizard — Tool for selecting map projections and coordinate systems.
• Qatar Digital Library — Historical maps and geospatial materials focused on the Gulf.
• University of Texas Libraries GeoData — Large collection of GIS datasets.
• Wiley Digital Archives – Maps — Historical maps and spatial collections (subscription-based).
• Worldview (NASA) — Satellite imagery and Earth observation data.