OpenDataPhilly seeks to improve access to data about Philadelphia, increase government transparency and accountability, drive and encourage innovative uses of the data, and inform citizens about our region’s trends.
For several years, municipal governments have sought to improve government transparency by releasing data sets for public use. While the City of Philadelphia made much of its GIS data available nearly ten years ago via PASDA, the Pennsylvania state data clearinghouse, Philadelphia lacked its own a website to provide easy access to a variety of open data sources with a Philadelphia focus. OpenDataPhilly.org is the result of an effort to make data about Philadelphia more readily available.
OpenDataPhilly.org features data sets, applications, and APIs that provide access to useful and significant data on the Philadelphia region. The site enables users to quickly search through available data sets and access links where they can download the data. By increasing access to open data, OpenDataPhilly encourages better and more open government and a more engaged and knowledgeable citizenry.
While many open data portals include only municipal government data, OpenDataPhilly also incorporates data from non-profits, universities, and commercial organizations in order to give a more complete picture of the data available on Philadelphia.
OpenDataPhilly also includes more than just downloadable data sets. It also includes data-centric web and mobile applications as well as developer-oriented APIs and other structured data feed. The goal is to create as rich and complete of an open data resource as possible.
Data sets needed to meet several guidelines.
We’ll continue to use this list of guidelines, and potentially add to it, when reviewing public submissions of data for inclusion in OpenDataPhilly.
Data on its own is not really helpful. To be truly useful, data needs to be sorted, analyzed, and transformed in new applications, visualizations, and stories. Our hope is that OpenDataPhilly will serve as a portal for users to find data sets that inspire them to connect with the data and creatively imagine how it can be re-used.
OpenDataPhilly features data that is available to the general public, usually at no cost. We encourage users to access this data and find ways to transform it into creative applications, projects, and visualizations. However, the creator of the original data set, application, or API retains any copyright or intellectual property restrictions they have placed on the data, application, or API. Please check with the originator of the data for questions regarding use and copyright, particularly if your use of the data will result in a for-profit endeavor or is used in a commercial manner.
If you receive a ‘processing’ download message for GIS data, this may be the result of the service providing the data. Please refresh this web page until the file downloads. If you continue to have trouble downloading this dataset, email data@Phila.gov.
OpenDataPhilly was built by Azavea, a Philadelphia-based geospatial software firm. Azavea’s initial work on OpenDataPhilly was partially done pro bono and partially supported by a grant from the William Penn Foundation to TechImpact. A second grant from the Knight Foundation helped support migration and redesign of the application in 2015. The catalog itself is obviously only part of the work. These data sets have been put together through countless hours invested over the course of many years by City staff, non-profit organizations, universities and private citizens. For a partial list of the many contributors, please visit the About page.
The catalog is currently being maintained by volunteers and the City of Philadelphia.
If you have a data set you’d like to have included in the OpenDataPhilly catalog, please email information about the data set, application, or API to info@opendataphilly.org. Please include as much information as possible so that we can confirm that the data is open for public use and easily accessible.
Not all data is currently open data, but that doesn’t mean you can’t access it. The law allows you make a Right to Know request. Learn who to contact and how to proceed with this Standard Right to Know Form:
The city’s Data Services Team began compiling a citywide data inventory - a detailed list of every dataset that exists within city government - to gauge public demand and inform prioritization of data releases. This inventory was never completed, but you can view datasets from the departments that completed this exercise:
Processing - open source tools for data visualization
Shapefiles and Geodatabases
We list a few tools but a much more complete list can be found on Wikipedia.
Data Portal Indexes
Other Public Data Catalogs
We have elected to not include comprehensive state and national data sets that are available through other resources. There are many such catalogs, but a few important ones include:
We believe that better data about our society and planet will help us both make better decisions and more effectively engage in our communities. These are some of the organizations that promote open data policies and we encourage you to support them: