Retrieve all statistical variables available for a particular place

Given a list of Place DCIDs, (e.g. any State, Country, etc.), return a list of statistical variables available for the specified DCIDs.

General information about this endpoint

URL: /place/stat-vars

Methods available: GET, POST

Required arguments:

dcids: A list of Place nodes, identified by their DCIDs.

How to construct a request to the place statistical variables endpoint

Step 1: assembling the information you will need

This endpoint requires the argument dcids. DCIDs are unique node identifiers defined by Data Commons. Your query will need to specify the DCIDs for the parent places of interest.

Step 2: creating the request

When actually putting together your request, you can choose from two options. If you intend to query only a small number of DCIDs, you may want to use the simpler formatting offered by the GET method. For larger numbers of DCIDs, or if you prefer to utilize a static URL, a POST request likely makes more sense. To use it, make a POST request against the main endpoint while changing the fields of the JSON body it sends.

Examples of usage for both GET and POST can be found below.

What to expect in the response

Your response will always look like this:

{
  "places": {
    <dcid>: {
      "statVars": [
        <dcid>,
        ...
      ]
    },
    ...
  }
}

Example requests and responses

Example 1: Retrieve a list of the statistical variables available for the country of Palau.

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://api.datacommons.org/place/stat-vars?dcids=country%2FPLW'

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.datacommons.org/place/stat-vars \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "dcids": [
      "country/PLW"
    ]
  }'

Response

{
  "places": {
    "country/PLW": {
      "statVars": [
        "MortalityRate_Person_Upto4Years_AsFractionOf_Count_BirthEvent_LiveBirth",
        "LifeExpectancy_Person_Male",
        "LifeExpectancy_Person_Female",
        "LifeExpectancy_Person",
        ...
      ]
    }
  }
}

Example 2: Retrieve a list of statistical variables available for the cities of Dodoma and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://api.datacommons.org/place/stat-var?dcids=wikidataId%2FQ1960&dcids=wikidataId%2FQ3866'

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.datacommons.org/place/stat-vars \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{
	"dcids": [
		"wikidataId/Q1960",
		"wikidataId/Q3866"
	]
}'

Response

{
  "places": {
    "wikidataId/Q1960": {
      "statsVars": [
        "Count_Person"
      ]
    },
    "wikidataId/Q3866": {
      "statsVars": [
        "Count_Person"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Error Responses

If your request is malformed in some way, you will receive a 400 status code and an error message like the following:

{
  "code": 3,
  "message": "Missing required arguments: dcid",
  "details": [
    {
      "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.rpc.DebugInfo",
      "stackEntries": [],
      "detail": "internal"
    }
  ]
}

Page last updated: January 14, 2025 • Send feedback about this page