Research Guides: Computer Science and Electrical Engineering: U.S. Government Data Sets for Data Mining and Analysis

There are times that you would like to test out data analysis or data mining techniques on different types of data. U.S. Government agencies provide a wealth of data sets that are available for use for no cost. This page contains links to help you find some of that data.

Finding U.S. Government Data

Data.gov
"The home of the U.S. Government's open data." Data, tools, and resources are available through this interface.

Using Google to Find Government Datasets

Conduct a site-specific search in Google using the URL pattern site:data.*.gov

Example: The Google search "hypersonic site:data.*.gov" returned 218 U.S. Government data sites with the keyword "hypersonic" on October 19, 2021.

Application Programming Interfaces (API) to Government Data

Inventory of Agency APIs and Other Services for Public Access Collections (Science.gov)
To improve the discoverability of publications across federal agency repositories, Science.gov created this well-annotated inventory of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and other services provided by each U.S. Government agency. APIs simplify programming, help to support application interoperability, and facilitate the machine-to-machine discovery of public access content by third parties and additional real-time search offerings.
U.S. Census Bureau Data and APIs
This UMKC Libraries' Research Guide provides links to resources to learn more about Census data structure and organization, and how to access Census data via an API.

U.S. Government Agency Data Catalogs

While much of this data may be found through Data.gov, you can search these agency catalogs directly.

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Data Center
Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Data Center
Data.CDC.gov - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Data.Census.gov - U.S. Census Bureau
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Data
U.S. Department of Agriculture Open Data Catalog
This catalog is the authoritative source of publicly available USDA data.
U.S. Department of Commerce Data Hub
U.S. Department of Defense Open Government Data
Federal Aviation Administration Data Portal
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Bank Data Guide
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) OpenFEMA
FEMA collects vast amounts of data on multiple aspects of emergency management — Disaster Information, Individual Assistance, Public Assistance, Hazard Mitigation, National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), and Grants. Data sets are available for download, along with an application programming interface (API) that provides data in an easily digestible, machine readable format.
U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) Global Change Information System
data.HealthCare.gov
Health Resources & Services Administration Data and Maps
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Data Sets
Medicaid and CHIP Open Data
DATA.NASA.GOV
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Scientific Data Sharing: Accessing Data
Browse the many NIH-affiliated repositories and learn how to access datasets.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Science Data Portal
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Data Discovery Portal
NOAA NCEI (National Centers for Environmental Information)
NCEI maintains one of the most significant archives on Earth, with comprehensive oceanic, atmospheric, and geophysical data.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Data Catalog
USASpending.gov
USAspending is the official open data source of federal spending information, including information about federal awards such as contracts, grants, and loans.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Science Data Catalog
USGS Earthquake Hazards Program
Provides data for earthquakes, earthquake engineering, natural hazard mitigation, and related topics.

Substantially adopted, with some additions, from Table 14.1 in the book Mastering United States Government Information: Sources and Services, by Christopher C. Brown.

Want to learn how U.S. Census Data is structured?

U.S. Census Academy
Free courses, webinars, tutorials and "data gems" to teach you how to use Census data. Learn how to use the US Census Bureau's free data for work, school, or other projects.
Handbook: Understanding and Using American Community Survey Data: What Researchers Need to Know
This handbook helps researchers learn more about estimates for geographic areas, how to access data products, sampling error, and more.
ESRI Technical Paper - Methodology Statement: 2015-2019 American Community Survey
March 2021 white paper from ESRI summarizing the methodology behind the American Community Survey, as well as some details on how ESRI-provided data differs from the U.S. Census Bureau data.
Census Academy Recorded Webinar - Census Data Tools for Equity and Identifying Underserved Communities
Introduces the U.S. Census Bureau’s new data explorer tool, My Community Explorer (MCE). MCE is an interactive map-based tool that highlights demographic and socioeconomic data that measure inequality and can help inform data-based solutions. This tool is designed to help users identify underserved communities as directed by the President's Executive Order 13985 on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce.

How about getting data directly into an Excel spreadsheet, or getting data with Python or R?

Handbook - Using the Census Data API With the American Community Survey: What Data Users Need to Know
This guide provides an overview of the Census Data API and how it can be used to build custom queries to quickly and consistently access ACS data.
Accessing Census and ACS Data in Python
A section from Chapter 5 of the Creative Commons licensed eBook, "Python Open Source Spatial Programming and Remote Sensing," by Michael Mann, Steven Chao, Jordan Graesser, and Nina Feldman. Steven Chao is the sole author of this section.
Census Academy Course - Analyzing Census Data in Excel
Learn how to use Excel to summarize, analyze, and visualize Census data. NOTE: While this course uses the obsolete American Fact Finder data portal, users will be able to access the same data through the Data.Census.gov portal.
Census Academy Recorded Webinar - Application Programming Interface (API)
Learn how to use the Census Bureau’s application programming interface (API) to quickly access data in a standardized way. In just a few easy steps, you can edit a sample URL, save your results, and open it in Excel to get the data you need. This webinar will serve as an introduction to help get you started and get you familiar with how to navigate the application programming interface.
Census Academy Recorded Webinar - Getting Started With American Community Survey Data in R and Python
Dive into American Community Survey (ACS) data using R and Python statistical software packages and libraries. In this webinar, Census Bureau experts and experienced ACS data users give you an overview of what is available, examples of real projects and case studies that have used these packages and libraries, and resources in order to learn more about working with these resources.

Computer Science and Electrical Engineering