open data

Photo of a young woman checking her smartphone in a busy Philippines market.

Transforming Social Media Signals into Accurate Population Maps for Crisis Response

WorldPop News /

An international research team led by Dr Paolo Andrich, a visiting researcher at WorldPop based at the University of Oxford, has developed a novel statistical framework to turn anonymised, biased social media data into reliable population estimates. This approach provides a timely and contemporary alternative to traditional censuses, which are often static and struggle to […]

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Photo of the WorldPop senior team meeting with their counterparts at DHIS2, University of Oslo

Strengthening Data Systems Together: WorldPop Meets the DHIS2 Team in Oslo

WorldPop News /

Last week, the WorldPop senior team met with their counterparts at DHIS2 at their headquarters in the University of Oslo. The conversations marked an important moment to step back from day-to-day technical work and focus on the bigger picture: how population data and digital administrative systems can work together to support better public services worldwide. 

Strengthening Data Systems Together: WorldPop Meets the DHIS2 Team in Oslo Read More »

AI generated image showing public health analysts, humanitarian responders, researchers, and urban planners using tablets, maps, and data dashboards, illustrating real-world impact. Caption reads "1,000,000+ open data downloads since 2019"

Celebrating a Milestone: 1 Million Downloads and Counting

WorldPop News /

We’re thrilled to celebrate a major milestone in our mission to ensure that everyone, everywhere is counted in decision-making. Since 2019, our open spatial demographic datasets have reached over 1 million downloads from our own site – adding to the hundreds of thousands more from our data hosting partners including HDX, ESRI’s Living Atlas, and

Celebrating a Milestone: 1 Million Downloads and Counting Read More »

Photo of baby being vaccinated.

Mapping 25 Years of Vaccination Progress in Nigeria: New High-Resolution Insights

WorldPop News /

At WorldPop, we believe that everyone should count in data – especially the people who are most likely to be missed. That principle is at the heart of a new preprint and open data release we’re excited to share: the most detailed spatiotemporal analysis to date of childhood vaccination coverage in Nigeria, spanning 25 years

Mapping 25 Years of Vaccination Progress in Nigeria: New High-Resolution Insights Read More »

Animation showing level 2 degree of urbanisation around Kinshasa, 2015-30

Mapping People, Places and Change: Exploring WorldPop’s Latest Global Data Releases

WorldPop News /

Understanding where and how populations are distributed, and how they shift over time, is at the heart of planning for health services, responding to disasters, designing cities, and tackling global challenges like climate change. WorldPop’s mission has always been to make high-resolution population and demographic data openly available, and the latest batch of global datasets

Mapping People, Places and Change: Exploring WorldPop’s Latest Global Data Releases Read More »

Visible infrared satellite loop of Cyclone Ditwah, by SSEC/CIMSS, University of Wisconsin–Madison

How Open Population Data Makes a Difference in Crisis Response

WorldPop News /

In major disasters, rapid response depends on two critical pieces of information: how many people are affected and where they are. This knowledge enables responders to prioritise aid delivery to the most vulnerable populations. Recent evidence from Sri Lanka shows that open population data from WorldPop helps answer these questions quickly and reliably. Cyclone Ditwah

How Open Population Data Makes a Difference in Crisis Response Read More »

Animation showing population distribution of Bogata under SSP1 scenario, 2025-2100

New Global 1 km Population Projections Released to Advance Climate and Health Research (Version 0.2)

WorldPop News /

As part of the Wellcome-funded FuturePop project, WorldPop has recently released a new open access dataset. The data includes gridded global population distribution maps at ~1 km resolution (30 arc-seconds) for every 5-year interval from 2025 through 2100, under each of the five Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios (SSP1-5). The projections feed into the Coupled

New Global 1 km Population Projections Released to Advance Climate and Health Research (Version 0.2) Read More »

AI art image of globe on a stage with 'Global 2' sign watched by a large audience

Discover the Power of Population Data: Join Our Upcoming Webinar

WorldPop News /

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of a ground-breaking open-access collection of high-resolution global demographic datasets (“Global 2”), available from 4 September 2025. Developed by the WorldPop programme at the University of Southampton, this new release delivers annual, age- and sex-disaggregated population estimates for 2015–2030, covering 242 countries and territories. This marks a major step

Discover the Power of Population Data: Join Our Upcoming Webinar Read More »

About Us

The WorldPop research programme, based in the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Southampton, is a multi-sectoral team of researchers, technicians and project specialists that produces data on population distributions and characteristics at high spatial resolution.

Initiated in October 2013 to combine The AfriPop Project, AsiaPop and AmeriPop projects, we have a diverse portfolio of projects, including large multi-million-pound collaborative projects with partner organisations, commercial data providers and international development organisations.

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