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Data and Statistics

Resources for finding and using data and statistics. This guide focuses on data for the social sciences.

Key resources

UBCs primary licensed and open data archive, shared by UBC, SFU, UVic and UNBC. Data sets include Canadian census data,  Public Use Microdata Files (PUMFs) from Statistics Canada (and other sources), geospatial data, as well as local, provincial, national and international data sets. Abacus includes some statistics as well as data.

Canada's national statistical agency. Publicly available data includes census data from the most recent censuses and customizable tabular data from many Statistics Canada surveys. This is the primary producer of Canadian government surveys.

Data and statistics from many branches of government, from agriculture to zoology. Includes climate data, geospatial data and economic data.

An international consortium holding microdata and statistics, covering education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields. This can be an excellent source for survey data for the United States.

Getting help

For general questions about finding and using data, contact the Data Librarian or Data/GIS analyst.

For help finding data or statistics in a specific field of research, contact the subject librarian for that area.

For help with R or SPSS, check out the Research Commons workshops and one-on-one consultations.

For help managing your own research data, please see the Research Data Management guide. 

For guidance in statistical methods, UBC's Department of Statistics offers a range of free and fee-based services

Related research guides