Reference · built on requestCommons signalEconomic & calendar reference

World Bank Indicators API

Development and economic indicators for countries and aggregates from the World Bank Indicators API v2, with no key required.

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About

The Indicators API is the World Bank's programmatic route into its databases, served from api.worldbank.org/v2. It exposes nearly 16,000 time series indicators across more than 45 databases, among them World Development Indicators, International Debt Statistics, the Global Economic Monitor, and Global Economic Prospects. A call names a country and an indicator code, such as country/all/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL, and returns XML by default or JSON on request. No key or registration is needed.

An operator built on Fibric reads the indicators for the economies you operate in, compares the latest value with the one it stored, and proposes a change to a market assumption or a benchmark table for your approval. The indicator code, source id, and lastupdated date travel with the proposal.

This is a reference listing. It documents what Fibric would read from World Bank Indicators API and what it could propose, based on the publisher's published interfaces. Fibric builds it under a managed deployment when you request it; selecting it here installs nothing.

Inputs

  • Indicator values by country and year through /v2/country/{code}/indicator/{code}, with date ranges such as 2000:2001 and mrv for the most recent values
  • World Development Indicators (source 2), the Global Economic Monitor (source 15), and Global Economic Prospects (source 27), each with a lastupdated date
  • International Debt Statistics (source 6) and the Quarterly Public Sector Debt and Quarterly External Debt Statistics databases
  • The country list at /v2/country with ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 and alpha-2 codes, region, income level, lending type, capital city, longitude, and latitude
  • The indicator catalogue at /v2/indicator with code, name, unit, source id, source note, source organization, topic id, and topic name
  • Sources, topics, income levels, lending types, and regions as their own endpoints, usable as URL segments or as query arguments
  • Quarterly and monthly observations where a database carries them, addressed as 2013Q1 or 2012M01 with the frequency parameter

Proposed actions

Read-only. This feed informs operators; it changes nothing.

Proposed actions are target capabilities. Every action runs propose-first and needs a validated deployment and the appropriate permissions.

What you can build

  • Benchmark candidate markets on the same indicators

    For a shortlist of countries the operator pulls GDP, population, and price indicators from World Development Indicators into one table, with the lastupdated date of each source, and proposes it as a market brief.

    With Site Benchmark, Demand Outlook

  • Refresh country assumptions when a database updates

    The operator watches the lastupdated date on the sources you use. When World Development Indicators or the Global Economic Monitor changes, it re-reads your indicators and proposes restated assumptions where the values moved.

    With Forecast Variance, Restatement Notice

  • Explain a regional variance with the Global Economic Monitor

    When a region's sales diverge from plan, the operator reads the Global Economic Monitor series for that economy and proposes an annotation naming the indicator that moved and the period it moved in.

    With Root Cause, Change Annotation

Requirements

  • Indicator codes such as SP.POP.TOTL or NY.GDP.MKTP.CD, plus the source id where an indicator belongs to more than one database
  • ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country codes, or World Bank codes where no ISO code exists, for the economies you follow
  • Network reach to api.worldbank.org
  • Attribution to the World Bank under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence that applies to datasets the World Bank produces
Authentication
None. API keys and other authentication methods are no longer required; requests go to api.worldbank.org over HTTPS.

Limits

  • Responses are paged at 50 results by default; page and per_page control paging, and the whole URL must stay under 4,000 characters
  • Up to 60 indicators can be combined in one call, separated by semicolons, and only when a source id is supplied
  • Requests cannot be sorted; ordering happens on your side after the pull
  • Third-party datasets in the catalogue may carry licences other than CC BY 4.0, including ODbL and custom terms named in their metadata

Access and pricing

Reference listing. Public feed access is separate from Fibric integration. If you request this feed, your quote covers the build, usage, and support.

Request World Bank Indicators API ↗

Questions and answers

Is a key required?
No. The World Bank states that API keys and other authentication methods are no longer necessary. Version 1 of the API was retired in 2018 and discontinued in June 2020; all calls use the v2 paths on api.worldbank.org.
What licence covers the data?
Datasets produced by the World Bank carry Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 by default: you may copy, modify, and distribute the data for any purpose, including commercial use, with credit and a note of any changes. Some third-party datasets use ODbL, a microdata research licence, or custom terms stated in their metadata.
How do I get the latest value only?
Add mrv=1 to return the most recent value per country, or mrnev=1 for the most recent non-empty value. gapfill=Y fills a missing period from the previous available one. Dates accept years, quarters such as 2013Q1, months such as 2012M01, ranges with a colon, and YTD:2013.
Ask about World Bank Indicators API

Ask about the capabilities and requirements in this listing.

For project-specific requirements, contact Fibric.

This Commons signal listing is developed, published, and supported by Fibric. It reads public data published by World Bank (api.worldbank.org). Upstream agencies and projects are the property of their respective owners, who are not affiliated with Fibric and do not sponsor or endorse this listing. Trademark policy