IPUMS by the Numbers

IPUMS has grown tremendously since the first download of an IPUMS data file in 1993. Over the last three decades, IPUMS has become the largest and most intensively used database covering the human population. We welcome you to explore IPUMS data for your research, and to join us in celebrating the latest stats about IPUMS data and the remarkable IPUMS user community.

 

DATA
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2.6 billion records
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157 countries
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63 million polygons
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581 billion table cells
DATA DOWNLOADS
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690 TB of data disseminated

In 2024, IPUMS disseminated 690 terabytes of data in the form of 233,000 downloads from our web-based access system, 19,500 requests using our Application Programming Interface (API), and 200,000 direct analyses of microdata with the Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) online tabulator.

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1,000+ data requests per day

On average, users downloaded data 690 times per day from the IPUMS websites and API--that's 29 downloads per hour or nearly one download every two minutes. IPUMS users analyzed data online with the SDA online tabulator an average of 545 times each day, 23 times per hour, or once every three minutes.

OUTREACH AND USER SUPPORT
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4,500+ conversations

We talked with data users and researchers interested in IPUMS data all around the world last year. We had over 4,500 conversations about IPUMS data between 15 conference exhibit booths, 14 workshops and webinars, four virtual office hours sessions, and 2,500 email exchanges and User Forum posts. Recordings of our 2024 webinars have over 1,000 views. We sent 22 newsletters to data users alerting them to new data and features, and our research staff wrote 17 blog posts detailing news from IPUMS.

IPUMS user community
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80,000+ active data users

The IPUMS user community includes researchers, policymakers, non-governmental organizations, journalists, students and educators, as well as curious individuals who want to learn more about their neighborhood and the world. There are 80,000 active users (those accessing data in the past two years) from 138 countries; the full IPUMS user community exceeds 300,000.

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2,000+ bibliography entries

In 2024, we added more than 2,000 publications to our bibliography of #poweredbyIPUMS work. Journal articles are the top media format using IPUMS data (45%), along with high numbers of theses/dissertations (12%) and working papers (11%). Each January, we ask you to share your publications from the previous year so we can recognize outstanding work as part of our annual research awards competition.