Databases Examples

Free Dataset Sources & Example Databases

A collection of sources that host free, public-use datasets and sample databases. Most sources allow direct download; some require registration.

Dataset Repositories & Search Engines

• Google Dataset Search – A Google index across thousands of dataset repositories, including government, academic, and publisher sources.
• Data.gov – The U.S. government’s open data portal with over 200,000 datasets covering climate, health, finance, and more.
• Kaggle Datasets – Community-curated datasets for data science, machine learning, and analytics projects.
• Data.world – Collaborative platform for discovering and sharing open datasets.
• FiveThirtyEight Data – Datasets behind FiveThirtyEight’s articles and analyses (sports, politics, economics).
• GitHub: Awesome Public Datasets – A topic-centric list of high-quality public datasets across many domains.
• UCI Machine Learning Repository – Classic benchmark datasets (e.g., Iris, Wine, Car Evaluation) widely used in machine learning.
• Open Data Kit: Data Packaged Core Datasets – Curated, packaged reference datasets maintained as part of the Frictionless Data project.

Global Development & Economics

• World Bank Open Data – Free and open access to global development data, including the World Development Indicators (WDI).
• World Bank Data Catalog – Searchable catalog of World Bank datasets with thousands of entries.
• UN Data – Free access to a wide range of international statistical resources from UN agencies.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Data – U.S. employment, inflation, productivity, and wage statistics.
• U.S. Census Bureau – Population, housing, economic, and geographic data.

Government & Civic Data

• NYC Open Data – New York City public datasets.
• San Francisco Open Data – San Francisco city datasets.
• Data.gov.uk – UK government open data portal.
• Open Data Monitor (EU) – Overview of open data resources in Europe.

Health & Social Impact

• WHO Data – Global health statistics from the World Health Organization.
• CDC Data – U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention datasets.
• County Health Rankings – U.S. county health factor rankings.
• IHME Global Burden of Disease – Global disease burden estimates from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Climate, Environment & Energy

• NOAA Climate Data – U.S. climate and weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
• NASA Earth Data – Satellite and Earth science datasets.
• EPA Air Quality Data – U.S. air quality and pollution data.
• U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) – Energy production, consumption, and price data.
• UN Greenhouse Gas Inventory Data – Greenhouse gas data from UN sources.

Machine Learning & Sample Databases

• Iris Dataset – Classic classification dataset from the UCI repository.
• Wine Quality Dataset – Wine quality ratings used for regression/classification benchmarks.
• Chinook Sample Database – A sample SQLite database for practicing SQL, modeling a digital media store.

References

• Tableau. "Free Public Data Sets For Analysis." https://www.tableau.com/learn/articles/free-public-data-sets
• awesomedata. "Awesome Public Datasets." GitHub. https://github.com/awesomedata/awesome-public-datasets
• Google. "Dataset Search." https://datasetsearch.research.google.com/
• University of California, Irvine. "UCI Machine Learning Repository." https://archive.ics.uci.edu/
• The World Bank. "World Bank Open Data." https://data.worldbank.org/
• U.S. General Services Administration. "Data.gov." https://www.data.gov/
• Kaggle. "Kaggle Datasets." https://www.kaggle.com/datasets
• data.world. https://data.world/
• FiveThirtyEight. "FiveThirtyEight Data." https://data.fivethirtyeight.com/
• United Nations. "UN Data." https://data.un.org/
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "NOAA Climate Data." https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/quick-links
• World Health Organization. "WHO Data." https://www.who.int/data/