World Bank Indicators API

The World Bank Indicators API exposes ~30,000 time-series indicators for 217 economies and 78 regional/income aggregates, some series back to 1960. No API key, no signup, no documented rate limit — plain HTTPS GET.

Base URL: https://api.worldbank.org/v2

Always append format=json — the default response format is XML.

Fastest path: bundled script

For the common case — one or more indicators for one or more countries — run the bundled zero-dependency script (Python 3.8+, stdlib only):

python3 scripts/wb_data.py gdp US,JP,CN                    # alias + ISO codes, last 5 years
python3 scripts/wb_data.py SP.POP.TOTL BR --date 2000:2024 # explicit indicator code + range
python3 scripts/wb_data.py inflation all --mrv 1           # every economy, latest value
python3 scripts/wb_data.py population WLD,EUU --json       # aggregates, raw JSON output
python3 scripts/wb_data.py --search "renewable energy"     # find indicator codes by keyword
python3 scripts/wb_data.py --aliases                       # list built-in indicator aliases

Exit codes: 0 success, 1 not found / no data, 2 API or network error.

Call the API directly (below) for anything else: country metadata, indicator discovery by topic/source, monthly/quarterly series, or non-Python environments.

Core data query

GET https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/{codes}/indicator/{indicator}?format=json

• {codes} — ISO-2 or ISO-3 country codes, semicolon-separated (US;JP;CN), an aggregate code (WLD, EUU, HIC...), or all (all 265 economies+aggregates).
• {indicator} — an indicator code like NY.GDP.MKTP.CD (case-insensitive).

Example

GET https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/US;JP/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?format=json&mrv=2

[
  {"page": 1, "pages": 1, "per_page": 50, "total": 4,
   "sourceid": "2", "lastupdated": "2026-07-01"},
  [
    {"indicator": {"id": "NY.GDP.MKTP.CD", "value": "GDP (current US$)"},
     "country": {"id": "US", "value": "United States"},
     "countryiso3code": "USA", "date": "2025",
     "value": 30769700000000, "unit": "", "obs_status": "", "decimal": 0},
    {"...": "one object per country×year, newest first"}
  ]
]

Response shape: a 2-element JSON array — [0] is pagination metadata, [1] is the data array (or null when nothing matched). value is null for years a country hasn't reported. Rows are sorted newest-first per country.

Time and pagination parameters

Multiple indicators in one call need an explicit source: /country/BR/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD;SP.POP.TOTL?source=2&format=json (source 2 = World Development Indicators, home of most common series).

Most-used indicator codes (all verified live)

~100 more verified codes grouped by topic in references/indicators.md — read it whenever the needed series isn't in this table. To search by keyword, use the script's --search or the discovery endpoints in references/endpoints.md (there is no server-side text search on the API).

Country codes and aggregates

Countries: ISO-2 (US) or ISO-3 (USA) both work. Aggregates worth knowing: WLD World, EUU European Union, EMU Euro area, HIC/UMC/LMC/LIC income groups, EAS East Asia & Pacific, ECS Europe & Central Asia, LCN Latin America & Caribbean, MEA Middle East & North Africa, SAS South Asia, SSF Sub-Saharan Africa, NAC North America.

country/all returns economies and aggregates mixed together (265 rows per year). To keep only real countries, fetch /v2/country?format=json&per_page=400 once and drop entries where region.value == "Aggregates".

Country metadata (region, income level, capital, coordinates):

GET https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/JPN?format=json
GET https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country?incomeLevel=LIC&format=json&per_page=100

Code examples

import requests

def wb_series(indicator: str, countries: str = "all", **params) -> list[dict]:
    """Fetch a World Bank series; returns a flat list of data points."""
    url = f"https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/{countries}/indicator/{indicator}"
    r = requests.get(url, params={"format": "json", "per_page": 20000, **params}, timeout=30)
    r.raise_for_status()
    body = r.json()
    if "message" in body[0]:          # API errors come back as HTTP 200
        raise ValueError(body[0]["message"][0]["value"])
    return body[1] or []

gdp = wb_series("NY.GDP.MKTP.CD", "US;JP;CN", date="2015:2024")
latest = wb_series("SP.DYN.LE00.IN", "all", mrnev=1)

const url = "https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/US;JP/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD"
          + "?format=json&mrv=5&per_page=1000";
const [meta, rows] = await (await fetch(url)).json();
if (meta.message) throw new Error(meta.message[0].value);
for (const r of rows ?? []) console.log(r.country.value, r.date, r.value);

Errors

Errors come back as HTTP 200 with a message envelope — always check for it:

[{"message": [{"id": "120", "key": "Invalid value",
               "value": "The provided parameter value is not valid"}]}]

• 120 — invalid country or indicator code (also returned for economies the World Bank doesn't cover, e.g. Taiwan has no data under any code).
• 175 — indicator exists but its data was deleted or archived (e.g. the old CO2 series EN.ATM.CO2E.PC → use the EN.GHG.* replacements; the whole Doing Business source is archived). Search for a successor code.
• Occasional transient HTML "Request Error" pages instead of JSON — retry once before treating it as a failure.

Practical tips

• Prefer mrnev=1 over mrv=1 for "the latest number" — most series lag one to two years, so mrv=1 often returns the newest year with value: null.
• Set per_page high (e.g. 20000) and you'll almost never need to paginate; all countries × one year is only 265 rows.
• total in the metadata counts country×period slots, including null values.
• Localized names: insert a language code after /v2 — /v2/zh/country/CN/indicator/... (supported: en, es, fr, ar, zh). Only labels are translated; codes and values are identical.
• Data revisions land monthly-ish; lastupdated in the metadata tells you the source's refresh date.
• Yearly is the norm. Monthly/quarterly exists only in a few sources (Global Economic Monitor source=15, quarterly debt source=20/22/23) — see references/endpoints.md.

For the full endpoint catalog (indicators list, topics, sources, regions, income levels, lending types, languages, monthly/quarterly data) read references/endpoints.md; for ~100 more verified indicator codes by topic read references/indicators.md.