Our World in Data
Open-source research and data on global development, health, energy, poverty, and environment — from the University of Oxford.
What should journalists know about Our World in Data?
Our World in Data is the best single source for contextualized global data. Founded by Max Roser at the University of Oxford in 2011, it is a research project of the Global Change Data Lab and the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development. A team of nearly 30 researchers, developers, and data specialists compiles data from official sources (World Bank, WHO, UN, national statistical offices, peer-reviewed research) and publishes it in standardized, interactive formats with explanatory articles. The key differentiator is not just the data but the research context. Each topic page explains methodology, limitations, and how to interpret trends — something raw data portals never provide. The interactive charts are embeddable with a single click, CC-BY licensed, and automatically cite their sources. For journalists, this means you can go from 'I need a chart of global life expectancy trends' to an embeddable, properly sourced visualization in under a minute. The entire codebase is open source on GitHub, including the data pipeline (ETL), the charting library (Grapher), and all article content. Data is downloadable in CSV format from every chart. Coverage is strongest on global development topics: poverty, health, education, energy, environment, food, population, technology, and conflict. It is weaker on country-specific politics, economics below the national level, or topics not covered by international statistical agencies. The platform's long-term perspective — showing trends over decades or centuries — is particularly useful for countering presentism in news coverage.
Embeddable charts and visualizations for global trend stories. Long-term data on health, poverty, energy, climate, education, and population. Cross-country comparisons on development indicators. Contextualizing breaking news with historical trends. Downloading clean, well-documented global datasets. Understanding methodology and limitations of global statistics.
US-specific or subnational data (use Census, BLS, Data.gov). Real-time or breaking news data. Country-specific political or economic analysis below the national level. Proprietary or paywalled datasets. Topics not covered by international statistical agencies. Primary source data — Our World in Data is a secondary source that compiles and standardizes data from original sources.
Security & Privacy
Data is scrambled while being sent to their servers
Data is scrambled when stored on their servers
Where servers are located — affects which governments can request your data
Privacy policy summary
No account required for any functionality — all data, charts, articles, and downloads are freely accessible without registration. Standard web analytics. No advertising. No paywall. No data collection beyond basic site analytics. All content is CC-BY licensed.
How to protect yourself:
No account required for anything — search, read, download, and embed all work without registration. All data is from public international sources and carries no sensitivity. Always follow source citations to the original data provider (WHO, World Bank, UN) for primary sourcing in reporting. Check the 'last updated' date on charts — some datasets update annually. For maximum independence, download the data and the open-source charting code from GitHub. When embedding charts, note that they pull from Our World in Data's servers — for archival purposes, take a screenshot as well.
No account required. No personal data collected. HTTPS throughout. No advertising or commercial tracking. Open-source codebase auditable on GitHub. Nonprofit with transparent funding. Hosted at the University of Oxford. From a privacy and security perspective, this is among the lowest-risk tools in the directory — a public research website with no user accounts, no tracking, and open-source code.
Who Owns This
Pricing
Completely free. All data, charts, articles, and code are open access. All visualizations can be embedded or downloaded. All datasets are downloadable.
This is an editorial assessment based on publicly available information as of 2026-04-11, using our published methodology. Independent security review is pending. Security posture can change at any time. This is not a guarantee of safety.
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