Political violence affects two billion citizens across the world. The consequences are stark: since 2005, additional mortality from armed conflict is close to two million (PSR, 2015); development progress is reversed (World Bank, 2011); and there are high economic costs borne by affected states (Brück et al, 2013). Conflict contributes to political decline, high corruption and poverty, poor social cohesion, and low institutional trust. It likewise exacerbates existing global threats, such as border insecurity, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the spread of extremist ideologies and terrorism. While the consequences of conflict are known, objective, timely, high-quality data are necessary to understand the extent of these effects across high risk and unstable contexts.

ACLED is an event-based data project designed for disaggregated conflict analysis and crisis mapping. Data are updated weekly and can be downloaded using the Data Export Tool or the API.

ACLED collects the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and protest events across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America & the Caribbean, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia & the Caucasus, Europe, and the United States.

For further information about ACLED's data, please see the codebook at: https://acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2019/01/ACLED_Codebook_2019FINAL.docx.pdf

For a full description of ACLED's geographic coverage, please see: https://acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2019/01/ACLED_Country-and-Time-Period-Coverage_updFeb2021.pdf

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) is a US-registered non-profit whose mission is to provide the highest quality real-time data on political violence and demonstrations globally. The information collected includes the type of event, its date, the location, the actors involved, a brief narrative summary, and any reported fatalities. ACLED users rely on our robust global dataset to support decision-making around policy and programming, accurately analyze political and country risk, support operational security planning, and improve supply chain management.ACLED’s transparent methodology, expert team composed of 250 individuals speaking more than 70 languages, real-time coding system, and weekly update schedule are unrivaled in the field of data collection on conflict and disorder. Global Coverage: We track political violence, demonstrations, and strategic developments around the world, covering more than 240 countries and territories.Published Weekly: Our data are collected in real time and published weekly. It is the only dataset of its kind to provide such a high update frequency, with peer datasets most often updating monthly or yearly.Historical Data: Our dataset contains at least two full years of data for all countries and territories, with more extensive coverage available for multiple regions.Experienced Researchers: Our data are coded by experienced researchers with local, country, and regional expertise and language skills.Thorough Data Collection and Sourcing: Pulling from traditional media, reports, local partner data, and verified new media, ACLED uses a tailor-made sourcing methodology for individual regions/countries.Extensive Review Process: Our data go through an exhaustive multi-stage quality assurance process to ensure their accuracy and reliability. This process includes both manual and automated error checking and contextual review.Clean, Standardized, and Validated: Our data can be easily connected with internal dashboards through our API or downloaded through the Data Export Tool on our website.Resources Available on ESRI’s Living AtlasACLED data are available through the Living Atlas for the most recent 12 month period. The data are mapped to the centroid of first administrative divisions (“admin1”) within countries (e.g., states, districts, provinces) and aggregated by month. Variables in the data include:The number of events per admin1-month, disaggregated by event type (protests, riots, battles, violence against civilians, explosions/remote violence, and strategic developments)A conservative estimate of reported fatalities per admin1-monthThe total number of distinct violent actors active in the corresponding admin1 for each monthThis Living Atlas item is a Web Map, which provides a pre-configured view of ACLED event data in a few layers:ACLED Event Counts layer: events per admin1-month, styled by predominant event type for each location.ACLED Violent Actors layer: the number of distinct violent actors per admin1-month.ACLED Fatality Estimates layer: the estimated number of fatalities from political violence per admin1-month.These layers are based on the ACLED Conflict and Demonstrations Event Data Feature Layer, which has the same data but only a basic default styling that is similar to the Event Counts layer. The Web Map layers are configured with a time-slider component to account for the multiple months of data per admin1 unit. These indicators are also available in the ACLED Conflict and Demonstrations Data Key Indicators Group Layer, which includes the same preconfigured layers but without the time-slider component or background layers.Resources Available on the ACLED WebsiteThe fully disaggregated dataset is available for download on ACLED's website including:Date (day, month, year)Actors, associated actors, and actor typesLocation information (ADMIN1, ADMIN2, ADMIN3, location and geo coordinates)A conservative fatality estimateDisorder type, event types, and sub-event typesTags further categorizing the data A notes column providing a narrative of the event For more information, please see the ACLED Codebook.To explore ACLED’s full dataset, please register on the ACLED Access Portal, following the instructions available in this Access Guide. Upon registration, you’ll receive access to ACLED data on a limited basis. Commercial users have access to 3 free data downloads company-wide with access to up to one year of historical data. Public sector users have access to 6 downloads of up to three years of historical data organization-wide. To explore options for extended access, please reach out to our Access Team (access@acleddata.com).With an ACLED license, users can also leverage ACLED’s interactive Global Dashboard and check in for weekly data updates and analysis tracking key political violence and protest trends around the world. ACLED also has several analytical tools available such as our Early Warning Dashboard, Conflict Alert System (CAST), and Conflict Index Dashboard.

A weekly dataset providing the total number of reported political violence, civilian-targeting, and demonstration events in Italy. Note: These are aggregated data files organized by country-year and country-month. To access full event data, please register to use the Data Export Tool and API on the ACLED website.

Context:

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project is designed for disaggregated conflict analysis and crisis mapping. This dataset codes the dates and locations of all reported political violence and protest events in developing Asian countries in. Political violence and protest includes events that occur within civil wars and periods of instability, public protest and regime breakdown. The project covers 2015 to the present.

Content:

These data contain information on:

• Dates and locations of conflict events;
• Specific types of events including battles, civilian killings, riots, protests and recruitment activities;
• Events by a range of actors, including rebels, governments, militias, armed groups, protesters and civilians;
• Changes in territorial control; and
• Reported fatalities.

Event data are derived from a variety of sources including reports from developing countries and local media, humanitarian agencies, and research publications. Please review the codebook and user guide for additional information: the codebook is for coders and users of ACLED, whereas the brief guide for users reviews important information for downloading, reviewing and using ACLED data. A specific user guide for development and humanitarian practitioners is also available, as is a guide to our sourcing materials.

Acknowledgements:

ACLED is directed by Prof. Clionadh Raleigh (University of Sussex). It is operated by senior research manager Andrea Carboni (University of Sussex) for Africa and Hillary Tanoff for South and South-East Asia. The data collection involves several research analysts, including Charles Vannice, James Moody, Daniel Wigmore-Shepherd, Andrea Carboni, Matt Batten-Carew, Margaux Pinaud, Roudabeh Kishi, Helen Morris, Braden Fuller, Daniel Moody and others. Please cite:

Raleigh, Clionadh, Andrew Linke, Håvard Hegre and Joakim Karlsen. 2010. Introducing ACLED-Armed Conflict Location and Event Data. Journal of Peace Research 47(5) 651-660.

Inspiration:

Do conflicts in one region predict future flare-ups? How do the individual actors interact across time?

ACLED makes its dataset of disaggregated conflict and protest data publicly available. A new version of the dataset is released annually, with data from the previous year and targeted quality review being added in each new version. Files for all countries are composed of ACLED events which indicate the day, actors, type of activity, location, fatalities, sources and notes for individual politically violent events. Please see the codebook for further details on conflict categories, actors, events and sources. The user guide provides guidance on downloading and reading files.

ACLED data are presented in three forms: the first is an Excel for the entire African continent; the second is a corresponding shapefile of the African continent created from those data; the third format is an Excel file called “COUNTRY X” containing data disaggregated by country which occur in the named state’s territory (including foreign groups active in a state’s territory).

A weekly dataset providing the total number of reported political violence, civilian-targeting, and demonstration events in Saint-Martin. Note: These are aggregated data files organized by country-year and country-month. To access full event data, please register to use the Data Export Tool and API on the ACLED website.

A weekly dataset providing the total number of reported political violence, civilian-targeting, and demonstration events in Niue. Note: These are aggregated data files organized by country-year and country-month. To access full event data, please register to use the Data Export Tool and API on the ACLED website.

This dataset contains information on the dates and locations of all reported political violence events in over 50 developing countries, with a focus on Africa. The data are drawn from news reports, publications by civil society and human rights organizations, and security updates from international organizations.The ACLED dataset is made up of thousands of individual data points, each referring to an individual event (a battle, an attack, a riot, etc.). Each event contains the following information: The date – the day on which the event took place; The type of violence – what kind of violence was involved; The actors involved – violent actors identified by group name or type (for example, the LRA or Protesters);The type of group – actors identified by a numeric code, indicating whether the actors are part of state forces (military or police), rebels, militias, communal/ethnic militias, etc.The country – the state in which the event took place;The location – several columns detailing the administrative zone and town / village location at which the event took place;Latitude and longitude coordinates – the geo-reference for the individual event;The source of the report – the source in which the description of the event was found;Event notes – a brief description of the event;Fatalities – the reported number of fatalities For more information on using ACLED for Humanitarian purposes, please see this report.Supporting documentation, including the project Codebook (detailing the data collection and recording process), a general user guide, and working papers which explore sources and methodology in greater detail are all available online at http://www.acleddata.com/. This dataset is updated once a week in following with the information detailed here, http://www.acleddata.com/data/realtime-data. It is updated using a script that runs on AWS Lambda. The source code for that script can be found on GitHub, here.

The ACLED project codes reported information on the type, agents, exact location, date, and other characteristics of political violence events, demonstrations and select politically relevant non-violent events. ACLED focuses on tracking a range of violent and non-violent actions by political agents, including governments, rebels, militias, communal groups, political parties, external actors, rioters, protesters and civilians. Data contain specific information on the date, location, group names, interaction type, event type, reported fatalities and contextual notes.

The ACLED project codes reported information on the type, agents, exact location, date, and other characteristics of political violence events, demonstrations and select politically relevant non-violent events. ACLED focuses on tracking a range of violent and non-violent actions by political agents, including governments, rebels, militias, communal groups, political parties, external actors, rioters, protesters and civilians. Data contain specific information on the date, location, group names, interaction type, event type, reported fatalities and contextual notes.

A weekly dataset providing the total number of reported political violence, civilian-targeting, and demonstration events in Tokelau. Note: These are aggregated data files organized by country-year and country-month. To access full event data, please register to use the Data Export Tool and API on the ACLED website.

The ACLED project codes reported information on the type, agents, exact location, date, and other characteristics of political violence events, demonstrations and select politically relevant non-violent events. ACLED focuses on tracking a range of violent and non-violent actions by political agents, including governments, rebels, militias, communal groups, political parties, external actors, rioters, protesters and civilians. Data contain specific information on the date, location, group names, interaction type, event type, reported fatalities and contextual notes.

This dataset contains information about conflict events in the Lake Chad basin crisis region as compiled by ACLED. Data is encoded as utf-8. The second row of each CSV contains HXL tags.

The data is compiled from two other datasets:

• ACLED Realtime 2016
• ACLED Version 6, 1997 - 2015

More about ACLED data can be found here: http://www.acleddata.com/

A weekly dataset providing the total number of reported political violence, civilian-targeting, and demonstration events in Jordan. Note: These are aggregated data files organized by country-year and country-month. To access full event data, please register to use the Data Export Tool and API on the ACLED website.

Context

This dataset contain data about armed conflict locations & event data in Bangladesh from the beginning of 2001 until Novmber 2021. The 'fatalities' feature can be used as a target to model for predictions.

Acknowledgements

We thank ACLED for providing this data. Find ACLED here : https://acleddata.com/#/dashboard

Licence

Non-Commercial Licenses - ACLED’s full dataset is available for use free of charge by noncommercial entities and organizations (e.g., non-profit organizations, government agencies, academic institutions) using the data for non-commercial purposes, subject to these Terms of Use. Non-commercial licenses may also be granted to for-profit media outlets or journalists citing ACLED’s content in works of journalism; provided that such works are made available to the general public and benefit public discourse on the topic, subject to ACLED’s prior, written approval.

Inspiration

How many fatalities based on event type and subtype? What to expect when each actor is involved in conflict? What regions are impacted the most? What are the events that manifest more fatalities? Can we model and predict fatalities based on the features we have? Can we forecast the upcoming year's crime rate?

ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project) is designed for disaggregated conflict analysis and crisis mapping. This dataset codes the dates and locations of all reported political violence and protest events in over 60 developing countries in Africa and Asia. Political violence and protest includes events that occur within civil wars and periods of instability, public protest and regime breakdown. The project covers all African countries from 1997 to the present, and South and South-East Asia in real-time.

These data contain information on:

Dates and locations of conflict events; Specific types of events including battles, civilian killings, riots, protests and recruitment activities; Events by a range of actors, including rebels, governments, militias, armed groups, protesters and civilians; Changes in territorial control; and Reported fatalities.

Data is updated weekly http://www.acleddata.com/data/realtime-data

Context

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project is designed for disaggregated conflict analysis and crisis mapping. This dataset codes the dates and locations of all reported political violence and protest events in
The Democratic Republic of the Congo. Political violence and protest include events that occur within civil wars and periods of instability, public protest a and regime breakdown. The project covers all regions from 1997 to the present.

Content

These data contain information on:

Dates and locations of conflict events; Specific types of events including battles, civilian killings, riots, protests and recruitment activities; Events by a range of actors, including rebels, governments, militias, armed groups, protesters and civilians; Changes in territorial control; and Reported fatalities. Event data are derived from a variety of sources including reports from developing countries and local media, humanitarian agencies, and research publications. Please review the codebook and user guide for additional information: the codebook is for coders and users of ACLED, whereas the brief guide for users reviews important information for downloading, reviewing and using ACLED data. A specific user guide for development and humanitarian practitioners is also available, as is a guide to our sourcing materials.

Acknowledgements

ACLED is directed by Prof. Clionadh Raleigh (University of Sussex). It is operated by senior research manager Andrea Carboni (University of Sussex) for Africa and Hillary Tanoff for South and South-East Asia. The data collection involves several research analysts, including Charles Vannice, James Moody, Daniel Wigmore-Shepherd, Andrea Carboni, Matt Batten-Carew, Margaux Pinaud, Roudabeh Kishi, Helen Morris, Braden Fuller, Daniel Moody and others. Please cite:

Raleigh, Clionadh, Andrew Linke, Håvard Hegre and Joakim Karlsen. 2010. Introducing ACLED-Armed Conflict Location and Event Data. Journal of Peace Research 47(5) 651-660.

Inspiration

Do conflicts in one region predict future flare-ups? How do the individual actors interact across time? Do some sources report more often on certain actors?

Content

This dataset contain data about armed conflict locations & event data in Saudi Arabia from the beginning of 2016 until mid April 2019. The 'fatalities' feature can be used as a target to model for predictions.

Acknowledgements

We thank ACLED for providing this data. Find ACLED here.

Inspiration

How many fatalities based on event type and subtype? What to expect when each actor is involved in conflict? What regions are impacted the most? What are the events that manifest more fatalities? Can we model and predict fatalities based on the features we have?

Licence

Non-Commercial Licenses - ACLED’s full dataset is available for use free of charge by noncommercial entities and organizations (e.g., non-profit organizations, government agencies, academic institutions) using the data for non-commercial purposes, subject to these Terms of Use. Non-commercial licenses may also be granted to for-profit media outlets or journalists
citing ACLED’s content in works of journalism; provided that such works are made available to the general public and benefit public discourse on the topic, subject to ACLED’s prior, written approval.

A weekly dataset providing the total number of reported political violence, civilian-targeting, and demonstration events in China. Note: These are aggregated data files organized by country-year and country-month. To access full event data, please register to use the Data Export Tool and API on the ACLED website.

A weekly dataset providing the total number of reported political violence, civilian-targeting, and demonstration events in Heard Island and McDonald Islands. Note: These are aggregated data files organized by country-year and country-month. To access full event data, please register to use the Data Export Tool and API on the ACLED website.