Retrieve data from the Our World in Data (OWID) Chart API. OWID provides public access to more than 4,000 charts focusing on global problems such as poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, war, existential risks, and inequality.
The package is part of the econdataverse family of packages aimed at helping economists and financial professionals work with sovereign-level economic data.
💡 The ETL Catalog API is currently in beta and relies on internal APIs that change on a regular basis. Once the API is stable, it is planned to be included in this package.
You can install owidapi from CRAN via:
install.packages("owidapi")You can install the development version of owidapi from
GitHub
with:
# install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("tidy-intelligence/r-owidapi")Load the package:
library(owidapi)Download the full life expectancy dataset:
owid_get("life-expectancy")
#> # A tibble: 21,565 × 4
#> entity_name entity_id year life_expectancy_0
#> <chr> <chr> <int> <dbl>
#> 1 Afghanistan AFG 1950 28.2
#> 2 Afghanistan AFG 1951 28.6
#> 3 Afghanistan AFG 1952 29.0
#> 4 Afghanistan AFG 1953 29.5
#> 5 Afghanistan AFG 1954 29.7
#> 6 Afghanistan AFG 1955 30.4
#> 7 Afghanistan AFG 1956 30.8
#> 8 Afghanistan AFG 1957 31.3
#> 9 Afghanistan AFG 1958 31.8
#> 10 Afghanistan AFG 1959 32.3
#> # ℹ 21,555 more rowsGet life expectancy data for Australia, Austria, and Germany:
owid_get("life-expectancy", entities = c("AUS", "AUT", "GER"))
#> # A tibble: 190 × 4
#> entity_name entity_id year life_expectancy_0
#> <chr> <chr> <int> <dbl>
#> 1 Australia AUS 1885 49.0
#> 2 Australia AUS 1895 53.0
#> 3 Australia AUS 1905 57
#> 4 Australia AUS 1921 61.0
#> 5 Australia AUS 1922 62.8
#> 6 Australia AUS 1923 61.7
#> 7 Australia AUS 1924 62.5
#> 8 Australia AUS 1925 63.2
#> 9 Australia AUS 1926 62.9
#> 10 Australia AUS 1927 62.8
#> # ℹ 180 more rowsDownload US life expectancy data from 1970 to 1980:
owid_get(
"life-expectancy",
entities = "USA",
start_date = 1970,
end_date = 1980
)
#> # A tibble: 11 × 4
#> entity_name entity_id year life_expectancy_0
#> <chr> <chr> <int> <dbl>
#> 1 United States USA 1970 70.7
#> 2 United States USA 1971 71.1
#> 3 United States USA 1972 71.2
#> 4 United States USA 1973 71.4
#> 5 United States USA 1974 72.0
#> 6 United States USA 1975 72.5
#> 7 United States USA 1976 72.8
#> 8 United States USA 1977 73.2
#> 9 United States USA 1978 73.4
#> 10 United States USA 1979 73.8
#> 11 United States USA 1980 73.7Get daily COVID-19 vaccination doses per capita for Germany between 2020-12-28 and 2020-12-31:
owid_get(
"daily-covid-vaccination-doses-per-capita",
entities = "DEU",
start_date = "2020-12-28",
end_date = "2020-12-31"
)
#> # A tibble: 4 × 4
#> entity_name entity_id day daily_vaccinations_smoothed_per_million
#> <chr> <chr> <date> <dbl>
#> 1 Germany DEU 2020-12-28 0.0215
#> 2 Germany DEU 2020-12-29 0.0406
#> 3 Germany DEU 2020-12-30 0.0525
#> 4 Germany DEU 2020-12-31 0.0543Download data directly using an URL from the website:
url <- paste0(
"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/civil-liberties-score-fh",
"?tab=chart&time=earliest..2023&country=ARG~AUS~BWA~CHN~ALB~DEU"
)
owid_get(url = url)
#> # A tibble: 126 × 5
#> entity_name entity_id year civil.liberties.score world.region.according.to…¹
#> <chr> <chr> <int> <int> <chr>
#> 1 Albania ALB 2003 42 Europe
#> 2 Albania ALB 2004 40 Europe
#> 3 Albania ALB 2005 38 Europe
#> 4 Albania ALB 2006 38 Europe
#> 5 Albania ALB 2007 39 Europe
#> 6 Albania ALB 2008 40 Europe
#> 7 Albania ALB 2009 39 Europe
#> 8 Albania ALB 2010 40 Europe
#> 9 Albania ALB 2011 39 Europe
#> 10 Albania ALB 2012 39 Europe
#> # ℹ 116 more rows
#> # ℹ abbreviated name: ¹world.region.according.to.owidYou can get metadata as a list by either provoding the data set name or URL.
metadata <- owid_get_metadata("civil-liberties-score-fh")
metadata_url <- owid_get_metadata(url = url)
str(metadata)
#> List of 3
#> $ chart :List of 5
#> ..$ title : chr "Civil Liberties Score"
#> ..$ subtitle : chr "Data by Freedom House. The score captures the extent of freedom of expression and association, the rule of law,"| __truncated__
#> ..$ citation : chr "Freedom House (2026)"
#> ..$ originalChartUrl: chr "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/civil-liberties-score-fh"
#> ..$ selection :List of 4
#> .. ..$ : chr "Argentina"
#> .. ..$ : chr "Australia"
#> .. ..$ : chr "Botswana"
#> .. ..$ : chr "China"
#> $ columns :List of 2
#> ..$ Civil liberties score :List of 13
#> .. ..$ titleShort : chr "Civil liberties score"
#> .. ..$ titleLong : chr "Civil liberties score"
#> .. ..$ descriptionShort: chr "The variable identifies the fine-grained extent of freedom of expression and association, the rule of law, and "| __truncated__
#> .. ..$ unit : chr ""
#> .. ..$ timespan : chr "2003-2025"
#> .. ..$ type : chr "Integer"
#> .. ..$ owidVariableId : int 1210109
#> .. ..$ shortName : chr "civlibs_score"
#> .. ..$ lastUpdated : chr "2026-03-23"
#> .. ..$ nextUpdate : chr "2027-03-23"
#> .. ..$ citationShort : chr "Freedom House (2026) – processed by Our World in Data"
#> .. ..$ citationLong : chr "Freedom House (2026) – processed by Our World in Data. “Civil liberties score” [dataset]. Freedom House, “Freed"| __truncated__
#> .. ..$ fullMetadata : chr "https://api.ourworldindata.org/v1/indicators/1210109.metadata.json"
#> ..$ World region according to OWID:List of 12
#> .. ..$ titleShort : chr "World region according to OWID"
#> .. ..$ titleLong : chr "World region according to OWID"
#> .. ..$ descriptionShort: chr "Regions defined by Our World in Data, which are used in OWID charts and maps."
#> .. ..$ unit : chr ""
#> .. ..$ timespan : chr "2023-2023"
#> .. ..$ type : chr "Continent"
#> .. ..$ owidVariableId : int 900801
#> .. ..$ shortName : chr "owid_region"
#> .. ..$ lastUpdated : chr "2023-01-01"
#> .. ..$ citationShort : chr "Our World in Data – processed by Our World in Data"
#> .. ..$ citationLong : chr "Our World in Data – processed by Our World in Data. “World region according to OWID” [dataset]. Our World in Da"| __truncated__
#> .. ..$ fullMetadata : chr "https://api.ourworldindata.org/v1/indicators/900801.metadata.json"
#> $ dateDownloaded: chr "2026-07-27"The only difference is in the originalChartUrl
value:
all.equal(metadata, metadata_url)
#> [1] "Length mismatch: comparison on first 3 components"
#> [2] "Component \"chart\": Component \"originalChartUrl\": 1 string mismatch"If you want to fetch the full catalog of available charts:
catalog <- owid_get_catalog()
catalog
#> # A tibble: 4,458 × 17
#> rowid id config_id is_inheritance_enabled force_datapage created_at
#> <int> <int> <chr> <lgl> <lgl> <date>
#> 1 106 20 0191b6c7-3629-7… FALSE FALSE 2015-07-02
#> 2 401 27 0191b6c7-3633-7… FALSE FALSE 2015-07-07
#> 3 211 31 0191b6c7-3635-7… FALSE FALSE 2015-07-09
#> 4 104 44 0191b6c7-3638-7… FALSE FALSE 2015-07-18
#> 5 604 46 0191b6c7-363d-7… FALSE FALSE 2015-07-20
#> 6 546 51 0191b6c7-3645-7… FALSE FALSE 2015-07-21
#> 7 602 52 0191b6c7-3647-7… FALSE FALSE 2015-07-22
#> 8 212 56 0191b6c7-364c-7… FALSE FALSE 2015-07-24
#> 9 511 64 0191b6c7-364e-7… FALSE FALSE 2015-07-31
#> 10 605 73 0191b6c7-3653-7… FALSE FALSE 2015-08-05
#> # ℹ 4,448 more rows
#> # ℹ 11 more variables: updated_at <date>, last_edited_at <date>,
#> # published_at <date>, config <chr>, slug <chr>, type <chr>, title <chr>,
#> # subtitle <chr>, note <chr>, title_plus_variant <chr>, is_published <lgl>To search for keywords in the catalog, you can use the following helper:
owid_search(catalog, c("climate", "carbon"))
#> # A tibble: 205 × 17
#> rowid id config_id is_inheritance_enabled force_datapage created_at
#> <int> <int> <chr> <lgl> <lgl> <date>
#> 1 501 488 0191b6c7-37aa-7… TRUE FALSE 2017-04-07
#> 2 499 530 0191b6c7-37ce-7… TRUE FALSE 2017-04-19
#> 3 658 784 0191b6c7-38c5-7… FALSE FALSE 2017-07-22
#> 4 163 1108 0191b6c7-3a46-7… FALSE FALSE 2017-09-08
#> 5 165 1129 0191b6c7-3a55-7… FALSE FALSE 2017-09-10
#> 6 711 1277 0191b6c7-3aeb-7… FALSE FALSE 2017-10-05
#> 7 76 1362 0191b6c7-3b27-7… FALSE FALSE 2017-10-14
#> 8 161 1366 0191b6c7-3b2a-7… FALSE FALSE 2017-10-15
#> 9 448 1421 0191b6c7-3b5f-7… FALSE FALSE 2017-10-23
#> 10 2014 2245 0191b6c7-3e77-7… FALSE FALSE 2018-02-20
#> # ℹ 195 more rows
#> # ℹ 11 more variables: updated_at <date>, last_edited_at <date>,
#> # published_at <date>, config <chr>, slug <chr>, type <chr>, title <chr>,
#> # subtitle <chr>, note <chr>, title_plus_variant <chr>, is_published <lgl>There are also a few experimental functions to embed OWID charts. For instance, you can create the HTML to embed a chart:
owid_embed(url)
#> [1] "<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/civil-liberties-score-fh?tab=chart&time=earliest..2023&country=ARG~AUS~BWA~CHN~ALB~DEU\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" allow=\"web-share; clipboard-write\"></iframe>"If you want to render embedded OWID charts in a Shiny app, you can
use owid_output() and owid_server():
library(shiny)
ui <- fluidPage(
owid_output("co2_chart")
)
server <- function(input, output) {
owid_server(
"co2_chart",
"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-emissions-per-capita"
)
}
shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)The owidR package
is broken since Our World in Data updated the API, has not received a
commit since November 2023, and uses a different set of dependencies
(e.g., data.table, httr,
rvest).