US Data - Urban Studies and Urban Affairs Resources - Oakland Campus

Major Data Sources

For those interested, we offer assistance with Research Data Management.

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) This link opens in a new window
ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 500,000 files of research in the social sciences. It hosts 16 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.
Note: Creation of a Personal Account is required to fully access all ICPSR features.
Statistical Insight This link opens in a new window
Provides abstracting, indexing, and full text for publications from hundreds of public domain and licensed sources.

Registry of Research Data Repostories (re3data)
re3data.org is a global registry of research data repositories that covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is often helpful for finding articles on your city or country. Some articles will contain statistical content.

United States Data

These are selected resources for national data.

Best US sources to start with:
FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)
FRED is a database maintained by the Research division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that has more than 816,000 economic time series from various sources.
Additional US sources:
General Social Survey (GSS)
Provides information on societal trends in the US and compares the US to other countries.
Statistical Insight
Statistical Insight (Lexis-Nexis) provides online access to three important statistical indexes: the American Statistics Index (ASI), Statistical Reference Index (SRI), and the Index to International Statistics (IIS).The service allows users to search summaries of statistical publications, then link to the full-text of selected publications on Statistical (Lexis-Nexis) and government Web sites.

Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
Social Explorer is mainly an interactive map of demographic information drawn from the US Census. Users can examine geographic areas while selecting the type of data to be shown, such as population density or income level. Note: Creation of a Personal Account is required to fully access all Social Explorer features.

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
Brings together data from more than 100 sources about many aspects of criminal justice in the United States.

Statistical Abstract of the U.S. (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
The Statistical Abstract of the United States is a one-volume, comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States. Use the Abstract as a convenient volume for statistical reference, and as a guide to sources of more information both in print and on the Web.
American Census Data This link opens in a new window
Primary way to access Census Bureau data, including releases from the 2018 American Community Survey, 2017 Economic Census, 2020 Census and more. Use data.census.gov to view, print, and download statistics about population, housing, industry, and business.
Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window
Presents mainly US census data for the nation as a whole, such as immigration statistics by country of origin or mortality rates by disease, ranging back to the 1800s.

City Information

Most city data (statistics) has to come from offical government websites of the city or country or from statistical abstracts and handbooks of the individual country. Most international organizations and databases generally provide only country level data. Encyclopedias like the Encyclopedia Britannica Online are useful for descriptions of cities and their statistics.

University of Pittsburgh Library System

Course & Subject Guides

Urban Studies and Urban Affairs Resources - Oakland Campus: US Data

Major Data Sources

Google Scholar

United States Data

City Information