Research Guides: Human Rights: International & Country-Specific Resources

Basic Facts and Statistics

Below are links to resources that are helpful for general information and facts on country, region, or population.

CIA World Fact Book (US Government)
Annual survey, with profiles of all countries and territories from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Country Studies from the Library of Congress
Each online book contains historical and cultural background information on the country it covers. Formerly known as the Area Handbooks from the Department of the Army.

Europa World Yearbook This link opens in a new window
Economic, political, historical, and geographic profiles of countries and global regions. Contact info for political, business, media, and cultural agencies and officials. Search or browse by country, region, organization, or people.

Human Development Report
Full text of UNDP Human Development Reports, from 1990 to the next to most current year, plus national Human Development Reports and an excellent statistics section on industrialized and developing countries.

UNdata This link opens in a new window
UNdata is the data download portal of the United Nations. Users can search by country, year, and indicator and create custom data extracts to download. UNData also includes an API that developers can use to query, display results externally, and download to local storage for further analysis. The data portal includes datasets from the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), World Health Organization (WHO), and more.

MDG Monitor
A one-stop-shop for information on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), globally and at the country level. Statistics and project progress information are available by country and by goal.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics
United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) statistical institute website. Includes statistical data sets of world education and literacy indicators, and selected data from the UNESCO Statistical Yearbook.
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
USAID provides economic, development and humanitarian assistance in support of the foreign policy goals of the United States. The site provides an overview of each county where the agency does work.

Alt-text: Image of world map showing continents and geographic regions

Human Rights Watch - Regions
Amnesty International - Human Rights by Country
Human Rights in South Asia
US Department of State - Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
Starting in 1993, the reports cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker's rights issues. Prepared by U.S. Department of State for Congress.
Also SSH Docs US Stacks Y 4.F 76/1-15 and Y 4.IN 8/16-15.
Human Rights by Country
From the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

See the Area & Cultural Studies Research Guides for more complete information on finding region-specific information.

Bibliography of Asian Studies This link opens in a new window
The online version of the Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS) contains records on all subjects (especially in the humanities and the social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide and in Western languages.

Encyclopedia of Modern Asia
This work contains more than 2,600 articles on a wide range of topics related to modern Asia, defined as extending from Japan in the east to Turkey in the west, and from Kazakhstan in the north to Indonesia in the south.

Index Islamicus This link opens in a new window
Index Islamicus is the main index in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. It indexes academic literature on Islam, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Records included in the index cover almost 100 years of publications on the world of Islam. Over 3,000 journals are monitored for inclusion in the database, together with conference proceedings, monographs, multi-authored works and book reviews. Journals and books are indexed down to the article and chapter level. Dates of coverage: 1906 to present.

Latin American Network Information Center
LANIC is a digital initiative of LLILAS Benson at the University of Texas at Austin. LANIC provides access to online content "to, from [and] on Latin America."