Global Census Archive

A global aggregation initiative to collect the world's census data in all its formats

Census information, in all forms, matters—now more than ever—with conflicts, natural disasters, climate change, and global population growth (or contraction in some cases) driving massive human migration, infrastructure development, and public policy challenges.

The East View Global Census Archive® (GCA) is an innovative program to collect official data and publications issued by the national census authorities of more than 175 countries, from the early 19th century to the present day, providing a key resource for scholars and analysts to find current and historical census data to support critical research into our changing world.

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Why Global Census Archive?

GCA provides a single platform experience to explore the world’s census publications: all countries and regions, the complete depth of published census materials, including original census publications in e-book form, as well as modern tabular data in Excel format and GIS files for advanced users.

This truly global collection contains all available primary source and official census publications associated with a given census. GCA currently contains millions of pages of publications and billions of data points in GIS format, with more content continually added as new censuses are produced across the globe. Users can browse historical publications as full-image, full-text e-books (in any language), download tabular data in Excel format (for born-digital publications), and download GIS data (e.g., shape files of administrative boundaries)—all from a unified discovery interface.

GCA simplifies access to and increases the discoverability of demographic data from the world’s census publications. Research and analysis is improved with e-books that are fully machine-searchable, with full-image, cover-to-cover browsing of original census publications (as well as important supplementary primary source materials such as original census questionnaires and ephemera), plus the ability to download a variety of GIS and tabular data files to complement existing modern census collections.

What kinds of materials are included in Global Census Archive?

Global Census Archive provides a centralized platform for all available published content that accompanies the release of a census. Census publications present a wealth of information and provide a comprehensive picture of results, particularly in the case of older census rounds for which GIS data may not be available.

While the availability and type of materials will vary by country and year, examples of typical census publications include:

  • Official results (analytical and tabular)
  • Questionnaires
  • Survey forms
  • Maps, atlases
  • Methodological and preparatory works
  • Public campaign literature
  • Newspaper and journal articles
  • Conference materials
  • Legislative works
  • East View-produced census catalog
  • MARC records (available upon request)

For more recent censuses where GIS data are available, GCA may include:

  • Administrative boundary vector data
  • Shapefiles
  • Census guide
  • Original questionnaires
  • Full attribute level metadata

Browse available GCA GIS datasets
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Available GIS Datasets

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