Overview

Get Started

Using the World Bank API, you can tap into 114 indicators from key data sources like World Development Indicators, Doing Business and Governance Indicators, and more than 12,000 development photos.  To get started, you must first receive a valid API key by registering for access.  Please use the links on the right-hand side of your screen to browse through the API calls and read through basic request and response formats below.

Version

This documentation refers to Version 2 of the World Bank API.  For documentation on Version 1, please see Version 1 Documentation.  

By default, calls will use the current API version, but you can insert "v1" or "v2" in your request to use a particular API version:
http://open.worldbank.org/v1/ will use version 1
http://open.worldbank.org/v2/ will use version 2
http://open.worldbank.org/ will use current version

Version 2 will be officially launched Thursday, April 16, 2009.  Until that time, to use the new version, be sure to put /v2/ before any calls.

Tutorial and Query Generator

To explore the data available, please use our graphical Query Generator.

We also have a Tutorial giving some sample code.