The following sources will provide places to get a background of your area:
Foreign Statistical Abstracts.
A collection of the statistical abstracts of many countries containing statistics on a broad range of subjects. Current editions are shelved by country name in the DSS collection (Firestone Library - A Floor). Select countries make their statistical yearbooks available online. Coverage varies. For older editions consult the Catalog. For a select list of countries, recent yearbooks are contained in Statistical Abstracts of the World (ProQuest). Tables are available in Excel format and have been converted to English. Also see the tab for historical compilations.
Governmental and intergovernmental homepages are another means of obtaining recent data on countries. Finding data below the national level is usually difficult at best if not impossible. Many nations provide online versions of their most recent statistical yearbooks which may provide subnational statistics. Also see the National Statistical Offices and Central Banks Web Archive.
OECD Territorial Reviews provide peer reviews of policy in particular urban areas, rural areas, and regions. The reviews systematically look at the economic context and policies of the area and make a series of recommendations for further fostering further economic development.
The OECD Regional Database provides comparable statistics and indicators on about 2,000 regions in 36 countries. Encompasses yearly time series for around 40 indicators of demography, economic accounts, labor market, social and innovation themes in the OECD member countries and other economies. Also contains access to the OECD City Statistics examines functional urban areas (FUAs) being composed of a city and its commuting zone, FUAs encompass the economic and functional extent of cities based on daily people’s movements (OECD, 2012). Provides socio-economic and environmental indicators for around 1 300 OECD functional urban areas over 50,000 inhabitants in 37 OECD countries. Some indicators are only available for large FUAs (i.e. above 250 000 inhabitants).
United Nations Human Settlements Programme includes data on natural disasters, population, refugees by country of asylum and other measures impacting major cities. African Cities Diagnostic contains 45 indicators for 31 African cities, related to urbanization, solid waste management, water resources availability, water supply services, sanitation services, flood hazards and economic and institutional strength.
Fitch Connect (formerly BMI Research). Macroeconomic data for a limited number of variables (in some case back to 1990) at the state or provincial level for Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.
A few countries provide extensive data from their statistical offices including subnational level data:
| Australia | Australian Bureau of Statistics | free |
| Brazil | CEIC | Provides macroeconomic and financial time series data on Brazil (including subnational). Contains a wide range of data on topics including national accounts, government and public finance, demographic and labor markets, inflation, foreign trade, foreign direct investment, financial markets, and data on a variety of industry sectors. |
| Canada | E-Stat | free |
| China |
Provides macroeconomic and financial time series data on China (including subnational). Contains a wide range of data on topics including national accounts, government and public finance, demographic and labor markets, inflation, foreign trade, foreign direct investment, financial markets, and data on a variety of industry sectors. |
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| China | EPS China Statistics | Consists of 79 statistical datasets covering China’s population census (1953-2020), micro-census (1995-2015), Industrial / Economic census (1985-2018), agricultural census (1996-2016), macro economy, financial markets, industry, trade, resources, and social statistics. The database has a particularly strong focus on city and county statistics. It allows creation of charts and maps and simple analysis. Data can be individually selected and downloaded in various formats. |
| China |
Many yearbooks can be found in the East Asian Library. Also the China Statistical Bureau Website (must use in Internet Explorer). |
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| China | China Statistical Yearbooks Databae (CNKI) | Large selection of statistical data published by the Chinese government including census data. Chinese-language version offers more up-to-date and reliable results; best to use the yearbook navigation mode. Includes national, provincial, city, and many topical yearbooks. Also see
China Data Insights. This menu for the CNKI Chinese Statistical Yearbooks database gives access to the data by indicators rather than by published yearbook. Click “Sign in” to be recognized as a Princeton user by IP. This database allows cross yearbook indicator searches and online map generation based on the statistical data originating from the officially published Chinese Statistical Yearbooks. Both functions are not available in the original China Statistical Yearbooks Database (CNKI). |
| Europe | Eurostat | Provides subnational statistics by province and/or city for many European Union members, Most data starts around 2000 with some back to mid 1990s. Also see ARDECO. Use the 2003 CD for data older than that found on the website. Data is on CD and requires using Virtual Machine to emulate older Windows. Firestone Microforms Services (FilmB) COMPUTER FILE 228. Documentation is online. |
| India | States of India |
Demographics, infrastructure, investment, economic, socio-economic and political data on India. Includes states, union territories, and districts. Registration required from a Princeton IP. |
| India | Indiastat.com | click on IP Login |
| India, Indonesia, Russia | CEIC | Provides macroeconomic and financial time series data on India, Indonesia, and Russia. Contains a wide range of data on topics including national accounts, government and public finance, demographic and labor markets, inflation, foreign trade, foreign direct investment, financial markets, and data on a variety of industry sectors. Includes select subnational data. |
| Japan | Digital archive of prefectural statistics on various categories such as population, agriculture, industry. These statistics have been collected annually in each prefecture since the Meiji period. | |
| Russia & Commonwealth of Independent States | Eastview UDB Statistics | primarily in native language |
| Aggregate Data, Regions of Russia (RoR), 1990-2010 | Online | Collection of aggregate statistical data for the Russian regions, made available in English. Includes a large range of variables that characterize a wide scope of economic and social factors. Comprises data from 82 regions of Russia on topics including trade, production, demography, labor, investment, climate, crime, education, health care, culture, banks, insurance, services, communication, and many industries. |
The Library is a depository for materials from the United Nations and the European Union. The publications of these organizations are a rich source of statistics on foreign countries and international economic conditions.