DEV Community: Statistics of the World

I built a free salary lookup tool for the Canadian federal government

Statistics of the World — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 02:24:44 +0000

The Canadian federal government employs over 300,000 people across 60+ classification groups. Every salary is public, set by Treasury Board collective agreements. But finding the actual numbers has always been painful: they're buried in dozens of separate PDF documents scattered across government websites.

So I built FedPay.ca to fix that.

What it does

You pick a classification group (like IT for tech, EC for economists, AS for admin) and a level, and it shows you the full pay scale with step by step rates, biweekly pay, and historical salary data going back to previous collective agreements.

It also includes:

A take home pay calculator that shows net pay after federal tax, provincial tax, CPP, EI, and pension deductions
A classification comparison tool for comparing pay across different groups
Job title pages that map real world titles like "software developer" or "policy analyst" to their federal classification codes

Tech stack

Next.js with static export (no server needed)
Deployed on Cloudflare Pages (free tier, auto deploys from GitHub)
All salary data compiled from Treasury Board collective agreements into a single TypeScript data file
SEO optimized with structured data (Occupation schema), dynamic OG images, and 700+ statically generated pages

Why I built it

I work in the Canadian public policy space and got tired of digging through PDFs every time someone asked "what does an IT-03 make?" The official government site lists rates of pay but they are organized by collective agreement rather than by classification, which makes comparison really difficult.

The site now gets about 15,000 to 20,000 monthly pageviews from Google, mostly from people searching things like "EC-05 salary" or "government of canada IT salary."

Some interesting salary facts

The lowest paid permanent federal position is CR-01 at $41,947/year
The highest is MD-MSP (medical specialist) at $266,454
Average across all employees is roughly $85,000
IT developers (IT-02) earn $85,854 to $105,080
Government lawyers have a wild salary band: LP-02 ranges from $130,178 to $206,388

If you have questions about the tech stack, the data pipeline, or how I approached the SEO, happy to answer in the comments.

Check it out: fedpay.ca

Visualizing Global Inflation With JavaScript — From API to Chart in 30 Minutes

Statistics of the World — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 17:28:12 +0000

Inflation has been the headline economic story of the last few years. I wanted to build a quick visualization showing which countries have the highest and lowest inflation right now — and how it compares to the global average.

Here's a minimal approach using vanilla JavaScript and Chart.js.

Getting the Data

I needed inflation rates for every country, sorted from highest to lowest. The IMF publishes this in their World Economic Outlook, but parsing their SDMX-JSON format is... not fun.

Instead, I used Statistics of the World's ranking endpoint which returns pre-sorted data:

async function getInflationData() {
  const res = await fetch(
    'https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/ranking/inflation-rate'
  );
  const data = await res.json();

  // data is already sorted highest to lowest
  // Each item: { country: "Venezuela", countryId: "VEN", value: 350.2, year: 2026 }
  return data;
}

No API key needed for basic requests. The data comes back clean — no null values mixed in, no weird country code mapping needed.

The Visualization

I wanted three views:

Top 10 highest inflation (the crisis countries)
Bottom 10 lowest (deflation or near-zero)
Distribution histogram

Top/Bottom 10 Bar Chart

<canvas id="inflationChart" width="800" height="400"></canvas>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/chart.js"></script>

<script>
async function render() {
  const data = await getInflationData();

  const top10 = data.slice(0, 10);
  const bottom10 = data.slice(-10).reverse();
  const combined = [...top10, ...bottom10];

  new Chart(document.getElementById('inflationChart'), {
    type: 'bar',
    data: {
      labels: combined.map(d => d.country),
      datasets: [{
        label: `Inflation Rate (${data[0].year})`,
        data: combined.map(d => d.value),
        backgroundColor: combined.map(d => 
          d.value > 10 ? '#ef4444' : 
          d.value > 3 ? '#f59e0b' : 
          d.value > 0 ? '#22c55e' : '#3b82f6'
        ),
      }]
    },
    options: {
      indexAxis: 'y',
      plugins: {
        title: { display: true, text: 'Inflation: Highest & Lowest Countries' }
      }
    }
  });
}

render();
</script>

Adding Context: Global Average Line

const avg = data.reduce((s, d) => s + d.value, 0) / data.length;

// Add as annotation
options: {
  plugins: {
    annotation: {
      annotations: {
        avgLine: {
          type: 'line',
          xMin: avg, xMax: avg,
          borderColor: '#6366f1',
          borderWidth: 2,
          label: {
            content: `World Avg: ${avg.toFixed(1)}%`,
            display: true
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

What the Data Shows (2026)

Running this with live data reveals some interesting patterns:

Hyperinflation is concentrated in a handful of countries (Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Argentina) where currency crises and political instability dominate
Deflation is hitting some export-dependent economies, particularly in East Asia, as the US tariff regime reshuffles global trade flows
The "2% club" (countries near central bank targets) is smaller than you'd think — most countries are either well above or below target
The global average is misleadingly high because it's skewed by outliers — the median is a much better measure of "typical" inflation

Going Further

A few extensions if you want to make this more useful:

Historical comparison: The API also provides time-series data, so you can show how a country's inflation evolved:

const history = await fetch(
  'https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/history?indicator=inflation-rate&country=ARG'
);
// Returns yearly inflation for Argentina going back 20+ years

Regional breakdown: Color-code by continent to see patterns — Sub-Saharan Africa and South America have systematically higher inflation than East Asia and Northern Europe.

You can explore the full interactive version at statisticsoftheworld.com/inflation-by-country — it shows all 218 countries with sortable tables and per-country drill-downs.

The Code

Full source for this visualization is under 100 lines. The hardest part of data visualization is usually getting clean data — once you have a sorted array of {country, value} objects, the charting is straightforward.

What economic data are you visualizing? I'd love to see what people build with this.

Building a Country Comparison Dashboard with Next.js and Free Data

Statistics of the World — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 17:27:03 +0000

I wanted to build a simple dashboard that lets you compare any two countries side-by-side — GDP, population, inflation, the works. The hard part wasn't the UI. It was getting clean data without stitching together five different APIs.

Here's how I built it in about two hours using Next.js App Router and free economic data.

The Stack

Next.js 14+ (App Router, Server Components)
Tailwind CSS for styling
Free economic data API for country statistics

No database needed — we're fetching live data on each request and caching with Next.js.

Step 1: Fetching Country Data

The annoying thing about economic data is that it's scattered. GDP comes from the IMF, population from the World Bank, health data from the WHO — and they all use different country codes.

I used Statistics of the World's API because it normalizes all of these into one endpoint with consistent ISO-3 codes. No auth needed for basic use.

// lib/data.ts
const BASE = 'https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2';

export async function getCountryData(countryId: string) {
  const res = await fetch(`${BASE}/country/${countryId}`, {
    next: { revalidate: 86400 } // Cache for 24 hours
  });
  return res.json();
}

export async function getRanking(indicator: string) {
  const res = await fetch(`${BASE}/ranking/${indicator}`, {
    next: { revalidate: 86400 }
  });
  return res.json();
}

Step 2: The Comparison Page

// app/compare/[slug]/page.tsx
import { getCountryData } from '@/lib/data';

export default async function ComparePage({ 
  params 
}: { 
  params: { slug: string } 
}) {
  const [country1, country2] = params.slug.split('-vs-');

  const [data1, data2] = await Promise.all([
    getCountryData(country1),
    getCountryData(country2),
  ]);

  return (
    <div className="max-w-4xl mx-auto p-8">
      <h1 className="text-3xl font-bold mb-8">
        {data1.name} vs {data2.name}
      </h1>

      <div className="grid grid-cols-3 gap-4">
        <div className="text-right font-mono">{fmt(data1.gdp)}</div>
        <div className="text-center text-gray-500">GDP</div>
        <div className="font-mono">{fmt(data2.gdp)}</div>

        <div className="text-right font-mono">{fmt(data1.population)}</div>
        <div className="text-center text-gray-500">Population</div>
        <div className="font-mono">{fmt(data2.population)}</div>

        <div className="text-right font-mono">{data1.inflation}%</div>
        <div className="text-center text-gray-500">Inflation</div>
        <div className="font-mono">{data2.inflation}%</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
}

Step 3: Making It SEO-Friendly

Since this is a server component, the HTML is rendered on the server — Google sees the full data. I added generateMetadata for dynamic titles:

export async function generateMetadata({ params }) {
  const [c1, c2] = params.slug.split('-vs-');
  const [d1, d2] = await Promise.all([
    getCountryData(c1),
    getCountryData(c2),
  ]);

  return {
    title: `${d1.name} vs ${d2.name} — Economy Comparison`,
    description: `Compare ${d1.name} (GDP: ${fmt(d1.gdp)}) vs ${d2.name} (GDP: ${fmt(d2.gdp)}). Population, inflation, unemployment, and more.`,
  };
}

Step 4: Static Paths for Popular Comparisons

Pre-render the most searched comparisons:

export function generateStaticParams() {
  return [
    'united-states-vs-china',
    'united-states-vs-india',
    'china-vs-japan',
    'germany-vs-france',
    'united-kingdom-vs-france',
  ].map(slug => ({ slug }));
}

The Result

A clean comparison dashboard that:

Loads instantly (server-rendered, cached)
Works with any two countries (218 total)
Has proper SEO metadata
Cost $0 in API fees

The full comparison is more polished than what I showed here — you can see a live example at statisticsoftheworld.com/compare/united-states-vs-china.

What I Learned

Server Components are perfect for data dashboards — no client-side loading spinners, no layout shift, great for SEO
Caching is your friend — economic data doesn't change hourly, so revalidate: 86400 keeps things fast
One normalized API beats three raw ones — I spent more time on the UI than on data fetching, which is how it should be

What are you building with country data? I'm always interested in what people use this kind of data for.

5 Free APIs for Global Economic Data in 2026

Statistics of the World — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 17:26:03 +0000

If you've ever built a dashboard, data visualization, or research tool that needed country-level economic data, you've probably hit the same wall I did: the data exists, but it's scattered across a dozen different sources, each with its own authentication system, country code format, and response structure.

In this post I'll cover the five free APIs I've found most useful for global economic data, when to use each, and how to get started quickly.

The Problem With Sourcing Economic Data

The gold-standard sources are the IMF, World Bank, WHO, and OECD — but each has its own API quirks:

World Bank uses ISO-2 country codes (US) in some endpoints and ISO-3 (USA) in others
IMF uses its own internal country codes alongside ISO standards
WHO has yet another set of country identifiers
Each API updates on different schedules

For a project that needs GDP + population + life expectancy across 50 countries, you're looking at 3 API clients, 3 authentication flows (or none, but different rate limits), and an afternoon of data normalization code.

Let's look at the options.

1. World Bank Indicators API

Best for: Development indicators, long historical series, academic citations

Docs: https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/889392

The World Bank's API is probably the most commonly used for cross-country data. It has 16,000+ indicators, 200+ countries, and many series going back to 1960. No auth required.

// Get US GDP (current USD) from 2000 to 2024
const response = await fetch(
  'https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/US/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?format=json&date=2000:2024'
);
const [meta, data] = await response.json();

Strengths: Authoritative, huge indicator coverage, excellent for social/development data
Weaknesses: No "get all indicators for a country" endpoint, response structure is verbose, rate limits not well-documented

2. IMF Data API (SDMX-JSON)

Best for: Macroeconomic forecasts, fiscal data, financial statistics

Docs: https://datahelp.imf.org/knowledgebase/articles/667681

The IMF's WEO (World Economic Outlook) data is the standard for consistent cross-country GDP, inflation, and fiscal comparisons. The API uses SDMX-JSON format which takes some getting used to.

// Get GDP data from IMF WEO
const response = await fetch(
  'https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/api/v1/NGDP_RPCH?periods=2020,2021,2022,2023,2024'
);
const data = await response.json();
// data.values.NGDP_RPCH.USA[2024] = GDP growth rate for US

Strengths: Best for macro forecasts and projections, consistent methodology across countries
Weaknesses: Complex query structure, SDMX format is unusual, steeper learning curve

3. FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)

Best for: US economic data, interest rates, monetary policy data

Docs: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/fred/

If you need US-specific data, FRED is unbeatable — 800,000+ time series from 100+ sources. Requires a free API key.

const API_KEY = 'your_key_here';
const response = await fetch(
  `https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/observations?series_id=GDPC1&api_key=${API_KEY}&file_type=json`
);
const { observations } = await response.json();

Strengths: Massive US coverage, excellent documentation, well-maintained Python/JS libraries
Weaknesses: Primarily US-focused; for international data you need to supplement with other sources

4. Statistics of the World API

Best for: Cross-country comparisons, dashboards, apps needing multiple indicators from one endpoint

Docs: https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api-docs

This is an aggregator API that normalizes data from IMF, World Bank, WHO, FRED, and UN into a single consistent format. 440+ indicators across 218 countries.

The key advantage: instead of writing three API clients, you make one request and get consistent data back.

// Get all available indicators for the US
const response = await fetch(
  'https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/country/USA'
);
const data = await response.json();
// data.gdp, data.population, data.inflation, data.life_expectancy...
// All in one response, consistent ISO-3 codes, consistent time format

// Compare two countries
const comparison = await fetch(
  'https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/compare?countries=USA,CHN,DEU&indicators=gdp,inflation'
);

No auth for 100 req/day, free API key for 1,000/day. I've found this particularly useful for quick prototyping — you can have a country comparison working in an hour rather than spending that hour on data normalization.

Strengths: Single endpoint, no auth for basic use, consistent country codes and time formats, covers most macro indicators
Weaknesses: Not a primary source (data traces back to IMF/World Bank, so cite those for academic work), not as deep for niche indicators

5. OECD API

Best for: Detailed analysis of OECD member countries — education, labor, tax, environmental data

Docs: https://data.oecd.org/api/sdmx-json-documentation/

The OECD API is the best source for detailed data on the 38 OECD members. Uses SDMX-JSON format (same as IMF).

const response = await fetch(
  'https://stats.oecd.org/sdmx-json/data/QNA/AUS+AUT+BEL.GDP+B1_GE.CUR+VOBARSA.Q/all?startTime=2020-Q1'
);
const data = await response.json();

Strengths: Very detailed for OECD countries, especially education, labor market, and tax data
Weaknesses: Complex query construction, OECD-only (no developing countries), SDMX format

Which Should You Use?

Use Case	Recommended API
US-focused analysis	FRED
Development/social indicators	World Bank WDI
Cross-country macro, forecasts	IMF WEO
OECD members, detailed labor/education	OECD
Dashboard / app (multi-country, multi-indicator)	Statistics of the World
Academic citations	World Bank or IMF directly

For building apps, my typical pattern is to prototype with Statistics of the World's API first (it's fast to get running), then switch to direct World Bank or IMF queries once I know exactly which indicators I need and need to cite primary sources.

Quick Start: Country Comparison in 10 Lines

async function compareCountries(country1, country2) {
  const res = await fetch(
    `https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/compare?countries=${country1},${country2}&indicators=gdp,gdp_per_capita,inflation,population`
  );
  const data = await res.json();

  console.log(`GDP ${country1}: $${data[country1].gdp.toLocaleString()}`);
  console.log(`GDP ${country2}: $${data[country2].gdp.toLocaleString()}`);
  // etc.
}

compareCountries('USA', 'CHN');

What are you building with economic data? Drop it in the comments — always curious what people are using this for.

5 Free APIs for Global Economic Data in 2026 (No API Key Needed)

Statistics of the World — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:13:15 +0000

If you're building anything that needs country-level economic data — a dashboard, a research tool, a data viz project — you've probably discovered that finding the right API is harder than it should be.

I spent way too long evaluating options for a recent project, so here's my honest ranking of the best free options in 2026.

1. FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)

Best for: US economic data
URL: fred.stlouisfed.org
Auth: API key (free, instant)

If you only need US data, stop here. FRED has 800,000+ time series covering everything from GDP to mortgage rates to the price of eggs. The API is well-documented, returns JSON, and the rate limits are generous.

curl "https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/observations?series_id=GDP&api_key=YOUR_KEY&file_type=json"

Limitation: US-only. If you need to compare the US to, say, Germany or India, you'll need another source.

2. World Bank API

Best for: International development indicators
URL: data.worldbank.org
Auth: None required

The World Bank's API covers 300+ indicators across 200+ countries — health, education, environment, infrastructure. No API key needed.

curl "https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/USA/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?format=json"

Limitation: The query syntax is clunky (you need to know indicator codes like NY.GDP.MKTP.CD), and the response format has some quirks. Also, the data updates slowly — often 1-2 years behind.

3. Statistics of the World API

Best for: Cross-country comparisons with data from multiple sources
URL: statisticsoftheworld.com/api-docs
Auth: None for basic use (100 req/day)

This one's newer but I've been using it a lot. It aggregates data from IMF, World Bank, WHO, and FRED into a single normalized API — so you don't have to stitch together four different data formats.

curl "https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/country/USA"

Returns all 440+ indicators for a country in one call. Also has endpoints for rankings, comparisons, and historical data. Free API keys available for 1,000 req/day.

Limitation: Doesn't have real-time financial data (stock prices, forex). For that, you'd need a dedicated market data API.

4. IMF World Economic Outlook

Best for: GDP, inflation, unemployment, government debt projections
URL: imf.org/external/datamapper
Auth: None

The IMF's WEO database is the gold standard for macroeconomic projections. Published twice a year (April and October) with data for 190+ countries.

Limitation: No proper REST API — you're mostly downloading Excel/CSV files or scraping their datamapper tool. That's why aggregators that pull from IMF are useful.

5. REST Countries

Best for: Country metadata (flags, currencies, languages, borders)
URL: restcountries.com
Auth: None

Not economic data per se, but incredibly useful as a companion API. Need a country's flag, currency code, or neighboring countries? This is the quickest option.

curl "https://restcountries.com/v3.1/name/japan"

Limitation: No economic indicators — just metadata.

Quick Comparison

API	Countries	Indicators	Auth	Real-time
FRED	US only	800K+	API key	Yes
World Bank	200+	300+	None	No
Statistics of the World	218	440+	None	No
IMF WEO	190+	~40	None	No
REST Countries	250	0 (metadata)	None	N/A

My Recommendation

For most projects, I'd use FRED for US-specific data and Statistics of the World for international comparisons (since it aggregates IMF + World Bank + WHO into one API). If you need raw World Bank data with full granularity, hit the World Bank API directly.

The real bottleneck with economic data isn't finding APIs — it's normalizing data across sources that use different country codes, time formats, and update schedules. That's where aggregators save you hours of glue code.

What APIs do you use for economic data? Drop a comment — always looking for new sources.

Free API for Global Economic Data — GDP, Population, Inflation for 218 Countries

Statistics of the World — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 17:15:38 +0000

I built a free REST API that provides economic data for every country in the world. No API key required for basic usage. Here's how it works and why I built it.

The Problem

If you've ever tried to get GDP, population, or inflation data programmatically, you know the pain:

World Bank API — works, but complex query syntax and XML responses
IMF API — even more complex, poorly documented
Trading Economics — paywalled ($50+/month)
FRED — great for US data, but limited international coverage

I wanted a single endpoint that returns clean JSON for any country, any indicator, with zero authentication.

The API

Base URL: https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2

Get all indicators for a country

curl https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/country/USA

Returns GDP, population, inflation, unemployment, government debt, life expectancy, and 440+ more indicators — all in one call.

Get one indicator for all countries (rankings)

curl https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/indicator/IMF.NGDPD

Returns GDP for all 218 countries, sorted by value. Perfect for building rankings or visualizations.

Historical data

curl https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/history?indicator=IMF.NGDPD&country=USA

Returns yearly GDP data for the US going back to 1980.

Data Sources

All data comes from official international organizations:

IMF World Economic Outlook — GDP, inflation, unemployment, government debt (193 countries)
World Bank WDI — 300+ development indicators (health, education, environment)
WHO — Health indicators (life expectancy, mortality rates)
FRED — US economic time series
United Nations — Population, trade statistics

Data is updated weekly as new releases become available.

No Auth, No Limits (almost)

No API key required for up to 100 requests/day
Free API key available for 1,000 requests/day (just sign up)
All responses are JSON
CORS enabled — works directly from the browser

Use Cases

📊 Build data dashboards
📈 Economic research and analysis
🗺️ Country comparison tools
📱 Mobile apps with global economic data
🤖 Feed LLMs with structured economic context

Try It

API Docs: statisticsoftheworld.com/api-docs
Interactive site: statisticsoftheworld.com — browse 218 countries with charts, rankings, and comparisons
Example: US Economic Data

The full site includes interactive charts, country comparisons, ranking tables, and a 2026 economic snapshot report — all free.

Would love feedback from anyone working with economic data. What indicators or features would be most useful for your projects?

I built a free alternative to Bloomberg's data API with 490+ economic indicators

Statistics of the World — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:09:01 +0000

I'm an economist who got tired of paying for Bloomberg Terminal access just to look up GDP data. So I built Statistics of the World — a free platform with 490+ economic indicators for 218 countries, with a free REST API.

The Problem

If you've ever tried to programmatically access global economic data, you know the pain:

Bloomberg Terminal: $24,000/year
Refinitiv/LSEG: $22,000/year
FRED API: Free but US-only
World Bank API: Free but slow, limited indicators, XML responses
IMF API: Exists but documentation is... an experience

I wanted one place where I could curl GDP, inflation, trade data, stock prices, and commodity prices — for any country — without paying thousands or parsing XML.

What I Built

Statistics of the World aggregates data from 6 sources into a single REST API:

IMF — World Economic Outlook, International Financial Statistics
World Bank — World Development Indicators (490+ indicators)
FRED — US economic data
Yahoo Finance — Real-time stock quotes, commodities, crypto
ECB — Exchange rates
Alpha Vantage — Market data

Quick API Examples

# GDP for all countries
curl https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/indicators/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD

# All indicators for Canada
curl https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/countries/CAN

# Live market quotes
curl https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/markets/quotes

# Search for any indicator
curl https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/search?q=unemployment

The free tier gives you 100 requests/day — enough for most research and side projects.

Tech Stack

Next.js 16 with React 19
Supabase (PostgreSQL) for the database
Python ETL pipeline — 49 cron jobs pulling data from all sources
Coolify on a $5.59/mo Hetzner VPS (replaced $45/mo Vercel + GitHub Actions)
Stripe for paid API tiers

Beyond the API

The site also has interactive features that I haven't seen elsewhere in one place:

Heatmap: Compare any indicator across all countries visually
Scatter plots: Plot any two indicators against each other (GDP vs. life expectancy, etc.)
Country comparisons: Side-by-side economic profiles
Economic calendar: Upcoming data releases with AI-powered actuals
Credit ratings: Sovereign ratings from all major agencies
Prediction markets: Polymarket integration for economic events
MCP endpoint: For AI agents that need economic context

What's Next

I'm working on:

Historical time series charts per country
Webhook alerts when indicators update
An OpenAPI spec for better developer tooling

If you work with economic data, I'd love feedback. The API is free, no credit card required.

Try it: statisticsoftheworld.com
API docs: statisticsoftheworld.com/ai
GitHub: github.com/dregon03/statisticsoftheworld