Comparative Government

• Ethnologue "contains information on 7,106 known living languages."
• Human Development Index, United Nations Development Programme. "A summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living."
• World Bank Data Bank. Find data on economic and social indicators in countries over time. Provides data and visualization tools.
• GINI index (World Bank estimate), World Bank. "Measures the extent to which the distribution of income (or, in some cases, consumption expenditure) among individuals or households within an economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution."
• CIVICUS Civil Society Index (CSI). "A participatory needs assessment and action planning tool for civil society around the world."
• Mass movements database (in the works). Effective States and Inclusive Development, Global Development Institute, The University of Manchester.
• Multidimensional Poverty Index, Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative
• Report on the world social situation, prepared by the Bureau of Social Affairs, United Nations Secretariat, in co-operation with the International Labour Office [et al.]
  Main Ref HN17.5 .U46
• World Values Survey, "The World Values Survey [...] is a global network of social scientists studying changing values and their impact on social and political life".

• World Development Indicators, World Bank Best Bet
• International Historical Statistics, 1750- Best Bet
  Worldwide coverage of statistics, including population & vital statistics, labor, agriculture, industry, trade, transport & communications, agriculture, education, and national accounts.
• Human Development Report, United Nations Development Programme
• Statistical yearbook, United Nations
• World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS)
  "international merchandise trade, tariff and non-tariff measures (NTM) data. Browse the Country profile section to obtain countries exports, imports and tariff statistics along with relevant development data".
• National Accounts Main Aggregates Database, United Nations, Statistics Division. Choose Data Selection/Country Profile.
• Statistical Abstract of the United States.
  Formerly published by the U.S. Census Bureau. "Comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States." A great place to start looking for data. Even if the data that you want are not there, look at the footnotes for relevant tables and the introduction to the relevant section for pointers to more comprehensive sources. Previous editions, 1878-, are also available.

Polls and surveys

• Global Attitudes and Trends, Pew Research Center
• World Public Opinion, from the Program for Public Consultation at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland
• World Values Survey
  "The WVS consists of nationally representative surveys conducted in almost 100 countries which contain almost 90 percent of the world’s population, using a common questionnaire. The WVS is the largest non-commercial, cross-national, time series investigation of human beliefs and values ever executed, currently including interviews with almost 400,000 respondents. Moreover the WVS is the only academic study covering the full range of global variations, from very poor to very rich countries, in all of the world’s major cultural zones."

Finding aids