Find Open Data

Increasing numbers of governmental and non-governmental organizations are publicly sharing open data on the web. Explore these different open data sources, evaluate their strengths and limitations, and learn how to download and/or integrate them with your own data to add value to your visualizations.

When hunting for open data, focus your search by asking questions such as:

  • Who might have collected or organized this data?
  • Which organization might have published this data in a public repository?
  • What level of data is publicly available? Is it aggregated into larger groups, or disaggregated down to the individual?

Several useful open data repositories for the US, Connecticut, and the Hartford region in particular:

  • Census.gov (http://census.gov) from the US federal government offers data through portals such as American FactFinder, and also provides some data mapping tools on their website. One of the most commonly used datasets is the American Community Survey (ACS), which provides 1-year estimates of large areas and 5-year estimates of smaller census areas, such as tracts, block groups, and blocks.
  • Connecticut State Data Center (http://ctsdc.uconn.edu/) and MAGIC: The Map and Geographic Information Center (http://magic.lib.uconn.edu), both from the University of Connecticut Libraries, offer state and regional data and map files, and several pre-made public data visualizations.
  • Connecticut Open Data (http://data.ct.gov) from the State of Connecticut offers data from several state agencies, and also provides data visualization tools through its Socrata web platform.
  • Connecticut Data Collaborative (http://ctdata.org), a public-private partnership, offers a data portal for federal, state, local, and private sources on the health, well-being, and the economy of the state, and also provides data visualization tools on its web platform.
  • Hartford Data (http://data.hartford.gov) from the City of Hartford offers data from several municipal agencies, and also provides data visualization tools through its Socrata web platform.

Suggest additional listings. . .