World Bank Data Scraper

GDP, population, inflation, unemployment, CO2 and 1,500+ World Bank development indicators for every country and year, as clean JSON.

World Bank Open Data is the reference source for comparing countries: national accounts, prices, jobs, population, health, education, energy, climate and poverty, for 217 economies and dozens of regions and income groups, many series going back to 1960. This Actor scrapes World Bank Open Data by indicator code, by keyword search, or from a data.worldbank.org link, for the countries and years you choose. Every row is one value: an indicator for a country in a year, with the country's ISO3 and ISO2 codes, region and income level, the unit, the date the series was last updated, the source database, and a link to the chart on data.worldbank.org. Paste a country page to get its 24 headline indicators in one go. There is no login, no API key and no proxy to configure. Built for economists and analysts, market-entry and country-risk research, ESG and climate reporting, dashboards and BI, journalism, and feeding clean macro data into models and AI pipelines.

⚡ Quick start

{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=US-CN&start=2000&end=2020"
    }
  ],
  "maxItems": 5
}

Or pick indicators and countries, latest value only:

{
  "indicators": ["NY.GDP.MKTP.CD", "SP.POP.TOTL", "FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG"],
  "countries": ["US", "CN", "DE", "IN", "BR"],
  "mostRecentValues": 1,
  "skipEmptyValues": true
}

Or search indicators by name, for every country since 2010:

{
  "indicatorSearch": ["unemployment total"],
  "maxIndicatorsPerSearch": 2,
  "yearFrom": 2010,
  "maxItems": 5000
}

🧩 Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
startUrls	array	no	—	data.worldbank.org pages: an indicator page with its countries and years (/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=US-CN&start=2000&end=2020), or a country or region page (/country/united-states, /region/east-asia-and-pacific).
indicators	array	no	—	World Bank indicator codes, one per line, such as NY.GDP.MKTP.CD or SP.POP.TOTL. See the popular codes below.
indicatorSearch	array	no	—	Find indicators by name, one search per line, such as unemployment total or renewable energy. Every word must appear in the name; a code prefix such as SL.UEM also works.
maxIndicatorsPerSearch	integer	no	5	How many matching indicators each search returns, best matches first.
countries	array	no	—	Countries, regions or groups by ISO2 or ISO3 code or by name: US, CHN, Germany, WLD (world), EUU (European Union), EAS (East Asia & Pacific), HIC (high income). Empty or all means every country.
includeAggregates	boolean	no	false	When every country is asked for, also return regional and income-group aggregates such as World or Sub-Saharan Africa.
yearFrom	integer	no	—	Only values for this year or later. Leave empty to start in 1960.
yearTo	integer	no	—	Only values for this year or earlier. Leave empty to end at the latest year.
mostRecentValues	integer	no	—	Only the latest N years per country, such as 1 for a snapshot. Overrides yearFrom and yearTo.
skipEmptyValues	boolean	no	false	Leave out years without a value. With mostRecentValues, returns the latest N years that have one.
maxItems	integer	no	—	Maximum rows per indicator code, search match or start URL. The input form starts at 5; leave it empty to get every row.
proxyConfiguration	object	no	{ "useApifyProxy": false }	Proxy settings. World Bank data needs no proxy.

Add at least one start URL, indicator code, indicator search or country. countries, yearFrom, yearTo, mostRecentValues and skipEmptyValues apply to indicator codes, searches and country pages. An indicator page keeps the countries and years set in its address and uses the input's only when it has none. With countries but no indicators, you get the 24 headline indicators of a country page.

Popular indicator codes. NY.GDP.MKTP.CD GDP (current US$) · NY.GDP.PCAP.CD GDP per capita (current US$) · NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG GDP growth (annual %) · SP.POP.TOTL population · SP.POP.GROW population growth · FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG inflation, consumer prices (annual %) · SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS unemployment (% of labor force) · SP.DYN.LE00.IN life expectancy · EN.GHG.CO2.PC.CE.AR5 CO2 emissions per capita · SI.POV.DDAY extreme poverty (% at $3.00 a day) · GC.DOD.TOTL.GD.ZS central government debt (% of GDP) · BX.KLT.DINV.WD.GD.ZS foreign direct investment (% of GDP) · IT.NET.USER.ZS internet users (% of population) · EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS access to electricity · EG.ELC.RNWX.ZS renewable electricity. Any indicator's code is in its data.worldbank.org address.

📤 Output

Each row is one value: one indicator for one country or aggregate in one year. Years the World Bank has no value for come back with value set to null unless skipEmptyValues is on. Rows come country by country, latest year first.

Fields

Field	Type	Description
indicatorId	string	Indicator code, such as NY.GDP.MKTP.CD.
indicatorName	string	Indicator name, such as GDP (current US$).
countryCode	string	ISO3 code of the country, or the World Bank code of an aggregate (WLD, EUU, HIC).
countryIso2	string	ISO2 code of the country, or the World Bank's two-character code of an aggregate (1W, EU, XD).
countryName	string	Country or aggregate name.
region	string	World Bank region, such as East Asia & Pacific. null for aggregates.
incomeLevel	string	World Bank income group, such as Upper middle income. null for aggregates.
isAggregate	boolean	true for regions, income groups and other aggregates such as World.
year	integer	Year of the value.
date	string	Period as the World Bank labels it: a year, or a quarter or month in some databases.
value	number	The value, or null when the World Bank has none for that year.
unit	string	Unit of measure, such as current US$ or % of total labor force. null for plain counts.
obsStatus	string	Observation status flag, such as an estimate marker, when the World Bank sets one.
decimal	integer	Decimal places the World Bank displays the value with.
lastUpdated	string	Date the series was last updated, YYYY-MM-DD.
sourceName	string	Database the series comes from, such as World Development Indicators.
url	string	The indicator's chart for this country on data.worldbank.org.

💡 Use cases

• Economic research and modelling — GDP, growth, inflation, debt and trade series for every country, ready for panel models and forecasts.
• Market entry and country risk — compare target markets on income, population, inflation, internet use and electricity access.
• ESG and climate reporting — CO2 emissions, renewable electricity, forest area and water stress by country and year.
• Dashboards and BI — schedule the Actor to keep a spreadsheet, database or dashboard in step with the latest World Bank release.
• Journalism and policy analysis — pull a country's 24 headline indicators, or rank every country on one measure.
• AI and data pipelines — feed clean, documented macro data into models, RAG and analytics workflows.

❓ FAQ

• Do I need an account or an API key? No. World Bank Open Data is free and public.
• Do I need a proxy? No. It runs without one by default.
• How do I find an indicator's code? Open the indicator on data.worldbank.org: the code is in the address, such as NY.GDP.MKTP.CD in data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD. Or use indicatorSearch with a few words of its name, or paste the page into startUrls.
• Why is value empty for some years? The World Bank has no figure for that country and year yet, or never collected one. Turn on skipEmptyValues to leave those rows out.
• How do I get the latest value for every country? Set indicators, leave countries empty, and set mostRecentValues to 1 with skipEmptyValues on.
• Are regions and income groups included? Only when you ask: name them in countries (WLD, EUU, SSF, HIC …) or turn on includeAggregates with every country.
• Why does an indicator return nothing? Some older codes were retired to the World Bank's archives and are no longer served; the log says so. Search for the current series with indicatorSearch, for example co2 per capita.
• How current is the data? It is read live from the World Bank on every run. lastUpdated shows when each series was last revised.
• Can I use the data commercially? Yes. World Bank Open Data is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0): credit The World Bank as the source, for example "Source: The World Bank, World Development Indicators", wherever you publish or share the data. A few series come from third-party providers under their own terms, noted in the indicator's metadata. See the World Bank's summary terms of use.

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🖼 Image credit

Image credit: data.worldbank.org