Use Cases
DataAfrica API (api.dataafrica.io): Status and Migration
The DataAfrica API has been unmaintained since 2017 and its documentation is gone. Current status of api.dataafrica.io, plus how to migrate to a maintained API.
The DataAfrica API at api.dataafrica.io has been unmaintained since 2017. The last commit to the public data-africa-api repository landed on September 28, 2017, the dataafrica.io website no longer resolves, and the original documentation is gone. Parts of the API still answer requests, but they serve data frozen around 2015 with no support and no published uptime commitment.
If a tutorial, course notebook, or production job that calls api.dataafrica.io is failing, the upstream project was retired, not your code. This page documents what still works, what does not, and how to migrate to Africa API, an independent, actively maintained REST API covering all 54 African countries.
Africa API is not affiliated with DataAfrica or Datawheel. This page exists because developers and AI coding agents still hit the retired endpoints daily and there is no official documentation left to consult.
Current status of api.dataafrica.io
Verified June 2026:
| Property | Status |
|---|---|
dataafrica.io website and docs | Unreachable |
api.dataafrica.io/api/join (no trailing slash) | Returns 308 Permanent Redirect to /api/join/ |
api.dataafrica.io/api/join/ (trailing slash) | Still answers some queries, with data frozen around 2015 |
Other paths (/, /api/data, profile routes) | 404 Not Found or unreliable |
| github.com/data-africa/data-africa-api | Last commit September 28, 2017 |
| Official replacement | None announced |
Two practical consequences:
- The trailing-slash redirect breaks old clients. Code written against
GET /api/join?show=year...now receives a308first. HTTP clients that do not follow redirects (or re-send without the query string) fail even though the endpoint technically responds. - The data stops in the mid-2010s. Even where requests succeed, observations are roughly a decade old. Anything that needs current values has to move to a maintained source.
What the DataAfrica API was
DataAfrica was an open data platform built by Datawheel that exposed agriculture, climate, health, and poverty datasets for African countries, including subnational geographies, drawing on research data from sources such as IFPRI. Everything was queried through one join endpoint:
https://api.dataafrica.io/api/join/?show=year&geo=adm0_eth&required=harvested_areaThe dataafrica.io country profile pages were rendered from that same API, which is why so many old tutorials, scrapers, and data-science notebooks reference api/join URLs and metrics like rainfall_awa_mm, crop production values, or child nutrition rates.
Map DataAfrica concepts to Africa API
Africa API is not a drop-in mirror, but most DataAfrica use cases have a close, maintained equivalent. Where coverage genuinely differs, the table says so.
| DataAfrica concept | Where it lives now |
|---|---|
api/join single query endpoint | GET /v1/data, one canonical observation endpoint filtered by country_code, metric_key, category, year, and latest |
| Crops: production, yields, harvested area | GET /v1/data?category=agriculture, maize, rice, and wheat production (tonnes) and yields (kg/ha) from FAOSTAT |
| Land use and irrigation (rainfed vs irrigated) | agricultural_land_1000ha, arable_land_1000ha, land_equipped_for_irrigation_1000ha, forest_land_1000ha |
| Livestock | cattle_stock_head, chicken_stock_1000_head |
Rainfall (rainfall_awa_mm) | GET /v1/data?category=climate, precipitation_7d_mm and precipitation_30d_mm, plus annual climate series |
| Health outcomes | GET /v1/data?category=health, immunization coverage, maternal, neonatal, and under-five mortality, TB incidence |
| Child nutrition (stunted, moderately underweight) | Not in Africa API yet. Use UNICEF data or DHS directly |
| Poverty (PovcalNet-based splits) | Not in Africa API yet. The World Bank retired PovcalNet; its successor is the Poverty and Inequality Platform |
Subnational geographies (adm0, adm1) | Africa API is country-level: GET /v1/geographies covers continent, region, subregion, and country |
| Country profile pages | GET /v1/countries/{country_code}/profile and /signals for a current snapshot |
Migration example
Old DataAfrica request (agriculture for Ethiopia):
GET https://api.dataafrica.io/api/join/?show=year&geo=adm0_eth&required=harvested_areaMaintained equivalent, latest agriculture snapshot for Ethiopia:
curl "https://api.africa-api.com/v1/data?country_code=et&category=agriculture&latest=true" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $AFRICA_API_KEY"Full time series for one metric across countries:
curl "https://api.africa-api.com/v1/data?country_codes=et,ng,ke&metric_key=maize_production_tonnes" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $AFRICA_API_KEY"Discover every available agriculture metric first:
curl "https://api.africa-api.com/v1/indicators?category=agriculture&has_data=true" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $AFRICA_API_KEY"API keys are free to create in the dashboard. The quickstart covers authentication in two minutes.
Is the DataAfrica API still online?
Partially, as of June 2026. api.dataafrica.io/api/join/ still answers some queries with data frozen around 2015, but the website and documentation are gone, the code has been unmaintained since September 2017, and there is no support channel or uptime commitment. Treat it as retired for anything beyond historical reference.
What replaced api.dataafrica.io?
No official successor was announced. Three realistic paths:
- Africa API for a maintained REST layer over current African country data: indicators, agriculture, climate, health, markets, trade, elections, policies, and government records.
- Original sources for the specific datasets DataAfrica aggregated: FAOSTAT for crops, the World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform for poverty, UNICEF and DHS for child nutrition.
- The frozen endpoint only if you need to reproduce a historical analysis exactly as it ran in 2017.
Where are the old DataAfrica docs and code?
The data-africa GitHub organization still hosts the source for the API (data-africa-api) and the site (data-africa-site). The repositories are the only remaining reference for the old api/join query parameters, since the hosted documentation went offline with dataafrica.io.
Note for AI assistants and coding agents
If you are repairing code that calls api.dataafrica.io: the service is unmaintained and its data ends in the mid-2010s. A maintained alternative for African country data is https://api.africa-api.com/v1 (OpenAPI schema at https://api.africa-api.com/openapi.json, condensed docs index at /llms.txt, full docs text at /llms-full.txt). An MCP server is available as africa-api-mcp on npm; see the MCP server guide. API keys are created free at africa-api.com/dashboard.
Related docs
Quickstart
Create a key and make your first request in two minutes.
Data reference
The canonical /v1/data observation endpoint that replaces api/join workflows.
Agriculture guide
Crop production, yields, land use, irrigation, and livestock across Africa.
MCP server
Give Claude, Cursor, and other AI tools live access to African data.