Want to create an amazing infographic? Start with solid data. It’s essential for crafting a good story and, when visualized well, makes that story stick. But where can you find that data? You might have some in-house, discovered an intriguing study, or need to search from the beginning. If you lack data, don’t worry. The Internet is a great resource for finding excellent (and free!) data from many reliable sources. To save you time—and prevent endless keyword rephrasing—we’ve compiled a list of 100 free data sources. We’ve categorized them to help you quickly locate what you need. You can thank us later. Just be sure to check out our 5 tips for sourcing data when you’re ready to turn those numbers into engaging visuals.
Free Data Sources: General/Academic
1. UNData: A statistical database of all United Nations data.
2. Amazon Public Data Sets: A repository of large datasets relating to biology, chemistry, economics, and physiology, including the Human Genome Project.
3. Pew Research: Public opinion polls, demographic research, content analysis, and other data-driven social science research.
4. Google Scholar: A wide array of information, including articles, theses, books, abstracts, white papers, and court opinions.
5. Datasets Subreddit: A dive into anything and everything, from English grain prices of the 14th Century to U.S. homelessness rates.
6. FiveThirtyEight: Statistical analysis that tells compelling stories about elections, politics, sports, science, economics, and more.
7. Qlik DataMarket: A place to check out data related to economics, healthcare, food, agriculture, and the automotive industry.
8. The Upshot by New York Times: News, analysis, and graphics about politics, policy, and everyday life.
Free Data Sources: Content Marketing
9. Content Marketing Institute: The latest news, studies, and research on content marketing.
10. Buffer:Data insights on digital marketing.
11. Moz: Insights on SEO.
12. HubSpot: A large repository of marketing data.
Free Data Sources: Crime
13. Bureau of Justice Statistics: Information on anything related to U.S. justice system, including arrest-related deaths, census of jail inmates, national survey of DNA crime labs, surveys of law enforcement gang units, etc.
14. Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics: Statistics on violent crime, such as murder, rape, robbery, and assault; has decades of data at city, county, state, and national levels.
15. FBI Crime Statistics: Statistical crime reports and publications detailing specific offenses and outlining trends to understand crime threats at both local and national levels.
16. National Archive of Criminal Justice Data: Original research based on archived data concerning criminal justice and criminology.
Free Data Sources: Drugs
17. Drug Data and Database by First Databank: Drug data and drug databases provided with the hope of drug knowledge inspiring change in the medication decision-making process.
18. U.S. Food and Drug Administration: Drug approvals and databases, including therapeutic equivalence evaluations for approved multi-source prescription drug products.
19. National Institute on Drug Abuse: Resources that cover a variety of drug-related issues, such as drug usage, emergency room data, and prevention and treatment programs.
20. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: Research, trend analysis, and forensics with global and regional data collections.
21. Drug War Facts: Thorough look at drugs and drug policy, applied to public health and criminal justice issues.
Free Data Sources: Education
22. National Center for Education Statistics: The primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education.
23. Government Data About Education: Education datasets, apps, resources for the classroom, and details about paying for college.
24. Education Data by the World Bank: Comprehensive data and analysis source for key topics in education, such as literacy rates and government expenditures.
25. Education Data by Unicef: Data related to sustainable development, school completion rates, net attendance rates, literacy rates, and more.
Free Data Sources: Entertainment
26. BLS: Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation: Related industries at a glance, with statistics and datasets relevant to arts, entertainment, and recreation.
27. Million Song Dataset: A collection of 28 datasets containing audio features and metadata for a million contemporary popular music tracks.
28. The Numbers: Detailed movie financial analysis, including box office, DVD and Blu-ray sales reports, and release schedules.
29. BFI Film Forever: Research data and market intelligence focused on the UK film industry and film culture.
30. IFPI: Global statistics about the recording industry.
31. Statista: Video Game Industry: Statistics and facts about the video game industry, ranging from global gaming software expenditure to U.S. brand equity of Nintendo Wii.
32. Statista: Film Industry: Statistics and facts about the film industry, from the number of movie tickets sold in U.S. and Canada to the number of 3D cinema screens worldwide.
33. Statista: Music Industry: Statistics and facts about the music industry, ranging from concert revenue to record company market share.
34. Academic Rights Press: A repository of historical and current music sales data with insight on how such numbers can be applied.
Free Data Sources: Environmental/Weather Data
35. Environmental Protection Agency: Information for more than 540 chemical substances, containing information on human health effects that may result from exposure to various substances in the environment.
36. National Center for Environmental Health: Nationally funded data systems that have a relationship to environmental public health.
37. National Climatic Data Center: Quick links from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, covering everything from storm data to climate indices.
38. National Weather Service: Climate data, including past weather conditions and long-term averages, from specific observing stations around the United States.
39. Weather Underground: Tracked weather by regional radar, regional severe weather, and global temperatures.
40. National Centers for Environmental Information: Weather record published since 1927, including monthly mean values of pressure, temperature, precipitation, and station metadata notes documenting observation practices and station configurations.
41. WeatherBase: Travel weather, climate averages, forecasts, current conditions, and normals for 41,997 cities worldwide.
42. International Energy Agency Atlas: A look at climate change that focuses on how each country produces and consumes energy.
Free Data Sources: Financial/Economic Data
43. Google Finance: Real-time stock quotes and charts, financial news, currency conversions, or tracked portfolios.
44. Google Public Data Explorer: Searchable large datasets on economic development worldwide.
45. U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis: U.S. economic statistics, including national income and gross domestic product.
46. National Bureau of Economic Research: Macro data, industry data, productivity data, trade data, international finance, data, and more.
47. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: Quarterly datasets of extracted information from exhibits to corporate financial reports filed with the Commission.
48. World Bank Open Data: Education statistics about everything from finances to service delivery indicators.
49. Financial Data Finder at OSU: Plentiful links to anything related to finance, no matter how obscure.
50. IMF Economic Data: Global financial stability reports, regional economic reports, international financial statistics, exchange rates, directions of trade, and more.
51. The Atlas of Economic Complexity: Analysis of trade flows and the sectoral composition of an economy with data visualizations.
52. World Bank Doing Business Database: An incredibly useful source of information that evaluates business environment indicators around the world, including trade capabilities and costs.
53. UN Comtrade Database: Raw data on high-level trade with visualizations.
54. Global Financial Data: Covers 60,000 companies across 300 years, analyzing the twists and turns of the global economy.
55. Visualizing Economics: Data visualizations about the economy.
Free Data Sources: Government/World
56. The CIA World Factbook: Facts on every country, dependency, and geographic entity in the world; focuses on history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues.
57. U.S. Census Bureau: Government-informed statistics on population, economy, education, geography, and more.
58. Data.gov: Open data of the U.S. government, focuses on everything from agriculture and ecosystems to manufacturing and science.
59. Unicef: Evidence on the situation of children and women around the world to inform national and global decision-making.
60. Data Catalogs: Comprehensive list of open data catalogs in the world, curated by a group of leading open-data experts.
61. European Union Open Data Portal: – Data pulled from European Union institutions.
62. Open Data Network: Government-related data with some visualizations tools built in.
63. Gapminder: Massive collection of data sources that cover everything from agriculture and employment to aid given and death.
64. Land Matrix (Transnational Land Database): A meticulously developed database of international land transactions with plenty of visualization tools.
65. The World Bank’s World Development Indicators: Huge collection of national data on hundreds of indicators, with data on every country.
66. UNDP’s Human Development Index: A ranking of country progress under the lens of human development.
67. OECD Aid Database: Visualized data regarding aid collected from governments.
Free Data Sources: Health
68. HealthData.gov: High-value health data for entrepreneurs, researchers, and policy makers; includes data on Medicaid, Medicare, clincial studies, and treatments.
69. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Public health data and statistics by topic, from alcohol use to viral hepatitis.
70. World Health Organization: Information, data, statistics, and reports concerning international public health.
71. President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition: Information aimed to promote, encourage, and motivate Americans of all ages to become physically active and participate in sport.
72. Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce: A collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations, and health sciences libraries.
73. Health Services Research Information Central: Selective links aimed at providing information and data regarding health services resources.
74. MedicinePlus: Health statistics ranging from percentage of obese citizens to rates at which people are catching the flu.
75. National Center for Health Statistics: Datasets, documentation, data access tools, growth charts, and resources for further vital records.
76. America’s Health Rankings: Health reports that view the nation holistically, with in-depth data and analysis.
77. Health & Social Care Information Centre: National provider of information, data, and IT systems for health and social care.
78. Medicare Hospital Quality: A database on complication rates by hospital for interesting comparisons.
79. SEER Cancer Incidence: Cancer-related statistical summaries, interactive tools, and publications.
80. The BROAD Institute: Cancer program legacy publication resources and cancer-related datasets.
Free Data Sources: Human Rights
81. Amnesty International: Human rights information, run independent of any political ideology, economic interest, or religion.
82. Human Rights Data Analysis Group: Nonprofit, nonpartisan group applying rigorous science to the analysis of human rights violations around the world.
83. Harvard Law School: A collection of links that cover a variety of topics, including everything from international relations and human rights data, from political institution databases.
84. The Armed Conflict Database by Uppsala University: A look at fragile and conflict-affected states that dives into minor and major violent conflicts around the world.
Free Data Sources: Labor/Employment Data
85. Bureau of Labor Statistics: U.S. government’s data collection of employment-related stats across regions, states, and local areas.
86. Department of Labor: Closely watched measures of employment and unemployment.
87. U.S. Small Business Administration: Employment data from business owners’ perspective, including economic indicators and projections.
88. Employment by U.S. Census: Data that measures the state of the nation’s workforce, including employment and unemployment levels, as well as weeks and hours worked.
Free Data Sources: Politics
89. Open Secrets: Nonpartisan, independent, and nonprofit; nation’s premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.
90. Crowdpac: Calculates objective scores for political candidates showing their overall political position and their position on specific issues.
91. Gallup: Data-driven news based on U.S. and world polls.
92. Real Clear Politics: A look at everything from policy support to election polling data.
93. Intro to Political Science Research by UC Berkeley: Statistics and data for those interested in political science; an ideal starting place.
94. California Field Poll: Independent, nonpartisan, media-sponsored public opinion news service that examines California public opinion.
95. Rand State Statistics: Social science data for the U.S. at the national, state, and local levels.
96. Roper Center for Public Opinion Research: U.S. and international polling and public opinion survey data.
Free Data Sources: Social
97. SocialMention: Real-time social media search and analysis.
98. Google Trends: Data and trends by search engine engagement.
99. Facebook Graph: API that pulls data about Facebook engagement.
Free Data Sources: Travel/Transportation
100. Bureau of Transportation Statistics: Transportation statistical data, research activities, and budgetary resources.
101. Monthly Tourism Statistics – U.S. Travelers Overseas: A look at U.S. international air passenger statistics.
102. SkiftStats: Latest statistics, research, and data about the travel industry.
103. Search the World: Statistics, population, weather, webcams, and travel information for millions of locations worldwide.
104. U.S. Travel Association: Covers a wide variety of travel-related topics, from impacts of travel on state economies to analysis of what a stronger dollar means for the travel industry.