World Bank Indicators Scraper — GDP, Population & More

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🎯 What this scrapes

The World Bank's Open Data API is free and keyless, but its wire format is built for the World Bank's own tooling, not for a spreadsheet. A successful response is a two-element array — pagination metadata bolted onto a row list, not a normal JSON object — and an invalid indicator code answers with HTTP 200 and a silent error block instead of a 404. This Actor fetches any mix of indicator codes across any countries and any date range, and hands back one flat row per country/indicator/year — ready for a pivot table, not a parser rewrite.

🔥 What we handle for you

• We parse the API's two-shape response envelope so a paging bug or a bad indicator code never corrupts your dataset.
• We skip an invalid indicator code or an empty country series with a clear warning — one bad code never kills the rest of your run.
• We retry 429/5xx responses with exponential backoff and honour Retry-After.
• We keep every null observation — most (country, year) pairs genuinely have no reported value, and we ship that as a real null, not a dropped row.

💡 Use cases

• Build a "GDP + population + CO2 for 200 countries × 25 years" master table for a macro research note.
• Pull a development-finance dashboard's underlying indicators without hand-copying from the World Bank's website.
• Feed an ESG or country-risk model with the World Bank's own reported figures, refreshed on a schedule.
• Fact-check a journalism piece against the official series instead of a secondary aggregator.

⚙️ How to use it

1. Click Try for free at the top of the page.
2. List the indicator codes you need (e.g. NY.GDP.MKTP.CD for GDP) — codes are on data.worldbank.org/indicator.
3. Set country codes (all or a ;-separated ISO list) and an optional date range.
4. Click Start. Output streams into the run's dataset as it's fetched.
5. Export from Storage → Dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel — or fetch via the API.

📥 Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Notes
indicatorCodes	array	no	["NY.GDP.MKTP.CD"]	World Bank indicator codes to fetch, one paginated series per code.
countryCodes	string	no	"all"	all or a ;-separated ISO list, e.g. US;CN;DE.
dateRange	string	no	(none)	Optional YYYY or YYYY:YYYY range, e.g. 2000:2024.
includeSourceNote	boolean	no	false	Attach each indicator's methodology note and source organization to every row.
maxResults	integer	no	5000	Stop after this many rows. Each row is one billed result event.
proxyConfiguration	object	no	{"useApifyProxy": false}	World Bank's API is public and keyless; proxy is opt-in.

Example input

{
  "indicatorCodes": ["NY.GDP.MKTP.CD", "SP.POP.TOTL"],
  "countryCodes": "US;CN;DE",
  "dateRange": "2015:2024",
  "includeSourceNote": false,
  "maxResults": 200,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}

📤 Output

Every row is one dataset item — one (country, indicator, year) observation.

Field	Type	Notes
country_id	string	Country ISO3 code, falling back to the API's alpha-2 id.
country_iso3	string	ISO alpha-3 country code.
country_name	string	Country display name.
region	string	World Bank region — not enriched in v1, always null today.
income_level	string	World Bank income level — not enriched in v1, always null today.
indicator_id	string	World Bank indicator code.
indicator_name	string	Indicator display name.
year	integer	Observation year.
value	number	Observed value — null for most rows; that's the API's own data, not a bug.
unit	string	Unit of measure, when the API provides one.
obs_status	string	Observation status flag, when present.
decimal	integer	Decimal precision of value.
scale	string	Value scale, when the API provides one.
source_note	string	Indicator methodology note (only when includeSourceNote is on).
source_organization	string	Source organization (only when includeSourceNote is on).

Example output

{
  "country_id": "USA",
  "country_iso3": "USA",
  "country_name": "United States",
  "region": null,
  "income_level": null,
  "indicator_id": "NY.GDP.MKTP.CD",
  "indicator_name": "GDP (current US$)",
  "year": 2022,
  "value": 25462700000000.0,
  "unit": "",
  "obs_status": "",
  "decimal": 0,
  "scale": null,
  "source_note": null,
  "source_organization": null
}

💰 Pricing

Pay-Per-Event — you pay only when these events fire:

Event	USD	What it is
actor-start	$0.05	One-off warm-up charge per run
result	$0.002	Per dataset item

Example: 1 000 results at the rates above ≈ $2.05. No subscription, no minimum, no card to start — Apify gives every new account $5 of free credit.

🚧 Limitations

• region and income_level are not enriched from the country-metadata endpoint in this version — both ship as null. A future version will cross-reference /v2/country to fill them in.
• This is a current snapshot, not a historical-revision tracker — the World Bank periodically restates past years, and we fetch whatever the API reports at run time.
• We pass through the API's raw value and unit as-is — no currency conversion or unit normalization.

❓ FAQ

Do I need an API key?

No. The World Bank's Open Data API is free and keyless. We still send a polite, identifiable User-Agent so runs stay good API citizens.

Why is value null for so many rows?

Most countries don't report every indicator for every year — that's a real gap in the underlying data, not something we dropped. We ship the null so your analysis sees the true coverage.

What happens if I typo an indicator code?

The API answers a typo'd code with HTTP 200 and a hidden error block — we detect that, skip the code with a warning, and keep fetching every other code you asked for.

💬 Your feedback

Spotted a bug, hit a weird edge case, or need a new field? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab on Apify Console — we ship fixes weekly and we read every report.

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