GEOG 160
Mapping Our Changing World

6. International Data

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The International Data Base is published on the Web by the Census Bureau's International Programs Center. It combines demographic data compiled from censuses and surveys of some 227 countries and areas of the world, along with estimates produced by Census Bureau demographers. Data variables include population by age and sex; vital rates, infant mortality, and life tables; fertility and child survivorship; migration; marital status; family planning; ethnicity, religion, and language; literacy; and labor force, employment, and income. Census and survey data are available by country for selected years from 1950; projected data are available through 2050. The International Data Base allows you to download attribute data in formats appropriate for thematic mapping.

Try This!

Acquiring World Demographic Data via the World Wide Web

The purpose of this practice activity is to guide you through the process of finding and acquiring demographic data for the countries of the world from the U.S. Census Bureau data via the Web. Your objective is to retrieve population change rates for a country of your choice over two or more years.

  1. Return to the U.S. Census Bureau site at http://www.census.gov.
  2. Hover over or click the People tab and choose International Data Base.
  3. Tables are available by Country or by Region.
    By Country Search: data is available for a single country for as many years as you want to select.
    By Region Search: for different themes from the Table pick list having to do with births and mortality, population change including such things as migration, population by age group, etc., you can select multiple countries (from the Custom Region pick list), region groupings of countries, or the whole world (from the Select region(s) pick list).

    Choose a single country under Country Search and two or more years. Then click SUBMIT. You will see a summary table of data for your selected country and years.
  4. Experiment with the choices under the Region Search tab.
  5.  For your information: to download an Excel (.xls) or text file (.csv) version of the data, find the respective link on the output page: "Excel" or "CSV"