About the Area Database

The Area Database contains economic well-being and development indicators at the national and sub-national level for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We combine survey data for over 500 recent (1990+) household surveys and other sources for 130+ developing countries and almost 1,500 subnational regions.

We integrate information from the following sources:

• Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
• UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)
• Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) International
• Barometer Surveys: Afrobarometer, AmericasBarometer, Arab Barometer, Asia Barometer
• Other data sources: Chinese Household Income Project, Chinese Household Finance Survey, Indian Human Development Survey, PAPFAM survey

The Area Database provides aggregated indicators in a comparable format based on the information of over 35 million people in 6 million households. We provide indicators about:

• Wealth, Poverty, Assets
• Urbanization
• Education
• Work
• Gender
• Fertility
• Child health, vaccination and mortality
• Population
• Quality of housing and access to infrastructure
• Subnational Human Development Index