FT data journalism metadata

An evolving collection of standard reference datasets.

The following are used to apply FT house style to geographic placenames:

• Country names and populations
• US state and country names and populations
• EU NUTS units

How to use

Use the raw CSV view of these files to import them directly into Google sheets:

=IMPORTDATA("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Financial-Times/data-journalism-metadata/main/data/countries.csv")

or R:

ft_countries <- read_csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Financial-Times/data-journalism-metadata/main/data/countries.csv")

Sources

If you are using any of population figures or classification schemes contained in these files for calculations in a story, you must include sources (and, where possible, links) for these portions of the data:

• The source and year of each country population is shown in the population_source field of the countries dataset. The default source is the 2019 World Bank estimates, but there are exceptions for some countries, so make sure you provide a complete list of any exceptions that apply to your story.

• US state and county populations are the US Census Bureau’s 2019 population estimates. Puerto Rico municipalities data comes from the US Census Bureau’s 2019 population estimates for Puerto Rico. US territory populations reflect those useed in the countries dataset.

• EU NUTS population figures come from Eurostat’s 2020 population estimates.