African indicators and time series API

Query African indicators, latest values, and time series across countries, years, categories, and sources.

Migrating an api/join query from api.dataafrica.io? See the DataAfrica migration guide for /v1/data mappings and coverage differences.

Data is provided for informational purposes. Observations are aggregated from third-party sources (World Bank, UN, IMF, and others) and may contain errors, omissions, or reporting lags. Check the source field on each observation and verify against it before relying on a value for financial, compliance, or other consequential decisions. See Sources for provenance and the Terms for details.

Query observations

GET/v1/data

/v1/data returns country-level observations filtered by metric, source, category, and year.

Use it for:

latest country metrics
time-series queries
multi-country comparisons
observations within a category
observations from a specified source

Use /v1/countries/{country_code}/signals instead when you want a compact latest snapshot without composing the query yourself.

Common category values include:

demographics
economy
infrastructure
energy
climate
health
education
agriculture

country_codestring

One country code

country_codesstring

Comma-separated country codes

metric_keystring

One metric key

metric_keysstring

Comma-separated metric keys

categorystring

Indicator category filter

sourcestring

Source code filter

yearinteger

Exact year

start_yearinteger

Inclusive start year

end_yearinteger

Inclusive end year

latestboolean

Return only the latest observation per country and metric

limitinteger

Max rows to return (1-1000)

Request

curl "https://api.africa-api.com/v1/data" \
  -G \
  -d "country_code=ke" \
  -d "metric_key=population_total" \
  -d "start_year=2020" \
  -d "end_year=2024" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AFRICA_API_KEY"

Response

{
  "data": [
    {
      "country_code": "ke",
      "country_name": "Kenya",
      "metric_key": "population_total",
      "metric_name": "Total Population",
      "year": 2020,
      "period": "annual",
      "value": 52217334,
      "unit": "persons",
      "source": "world_bank_wdi",
      "value_status": "reported",
      "retrieved_at": "2026-03-07T12:10:14Z"
    },
    {
      "country_code": "ke",
      "country_name": "Kenya",
      "metric_key": "population_total",
      "metric_name": "Total Population",
      "year": 2024,
      "period": "annual",
      "value": 55100586,
      "unit": "persons",
      "source": "world_bank_wdi",
      "value_status": "reported",
      "retrieved_at": "2026-03-07T12:10:14Z"
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "total": 5,
    "limit": 100
  }
}

Compare countries for one year

curl "https://api.africa-api.com/v1/data?country_codes=ng,ke,za&metric_key=gdp_current_usd&year=2024" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AFRICA_API_KEY"

Education Query Example

curl "https://api.africa-api.com/v1/data?country_code=ke&category=education&latest=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AFRICA_API_KEY"

Agriculture Query Example

curl "https://api.africa-api.com/v1/data?country_code=ng&metric_key=maize_production_tonnes&start_year=2020&end_year=2024" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AFRICA_API_KEY"

For metric lists and domain-specific examples, see Energy, Climate, and Transport.

Canonical Source Behavior

When more than one source publishes the same metric, /v1/data returns one canonical observation by default. Use source= if you need to pin the response to a specific dataset.

Estimates And Dataset Versions

Some sources publish coded estimates rather than single reported values. When the source provides them, observations include:

estimate_low: the source's low estimate
estimate_high: the source's high estimate
dataset_version: the source release used for the observation

These fields are optional. Treat value as the best estimate only when value_status is estimated, and retain the low/high range when presenting or modeling uncertainty.

Validation Rules

year cannot be combined with start_year or end_year
start_year must be less than or equal to end_year
limit is capped at 1000

Common Query Patterns

Use country_code when you need one country.
Use country_codes when you need a comparison set.
Use latest=true when you only need the most recent observation per metric.
Use source= when your application needs a specific dataset instead of the default canonical result.

Data

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