Demographics & census data · University of Minnesota (Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation)

IPUMS

Free harmonized census and survey microdata spanning U.S. history and 100+ countries, run by the University of Minnesota.

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IPUMS is a research infrastructure project, based at the University of Minnesota, that takes raw census and survey microdata (individual and household-level records, not just published summary tables) from many sources and time periods and harmonizes the variable codes and categories so they can be compared consistently across years and countries. Its collections include IPUMS USA (U.S. census microdata from 1850 to the present), IPUMS International (microdata from more than 100 countries), IPUMS CPS (Current Population Survey data), IPUMS NHGIS (U.S. census summary tables with matching GIS boundary files) and IPUMS Global Health, among others. It is built for demographers, economists, sociologists and other social-science researchers who need individual-level records for statistical analysis rather than pre-aggregated tables. All IPUMS data and tools are free to use, funded through the university and U.S. federal research grants (including the National Science Foundation and NIH) rather than commercial licensing.

At a glance

Vendor University of Minnesota (Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation)
Pricing model Free
Free tier Yes
Deployment Cloud
Open source No
Best for Academic researchers needing individual-level census or survey microdata comparable across time or countries.

Pricing

Free to registered users; funded by the University of Minnesota and U.S. federal research grants.

Pricing has not been verified yet — see the vendor's site.

Features

  • Harmonized census microdata across time (IPUMS USA, 1850–present)
  • Harmonized international census microdata (100+ countries)
  • Current Population Survey microdata (IPUMS CPS)
  • Census summary tables with matching GIS boundaries (IPUMS NHGIS)
  • International health survey data (IPUMS Global Health)
  • Custom data extraction tools for building research-ready datasets
  • Consistent variable coding across years and countries

Profile last reviewed September 21, 2026

Head to head

Alternatives

Social Explorer Web platform for mapping and querying census and public data, from historical U.S. census records to current surveys. U.S. Census Bureau Data Tools The Census Bureau's free official tools for accessing U.S. demographic, economic and geographic data, led by data.census.gov.

IPUMS in the index now

Related guides

How to use census and government data Finding the right official statistics, joining them to your own data by geography, and the margin-of-error traps that catch first-time users. Where to find census and demographic data Government tables, harmonized microdata, and paid neighborhood segments each answer a different demographic question. Here is which one you need.