UCDP Conflict Data API
UCDP Conflict Data API
Uppsala Conflict Data Program exposes georeferenced organized-violence events and yearly conflict datasets through a versioned REST API returning paginated JSON. Event records include actors, country, coordinates, date ranges, violence type, source information and fatality estimates; a requested free access token is required.
Required Attribution:
For UCDP GED 26.1, cite: "Shawn Davies, Therése Pettersson, Magnus Öberg, Organized violence 1989–2025, and violent political protests, Journal of Peace Research, 2026" and "Sundberg, Ralph and Erik Melander (2013) Introducing the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset. Journal of Peace Research 50(4)."
Coverage
The global georeferenced event series covers organized violence from 1989, while the UCDP/PRIO armed-conflict and dyadic yearly series begin in 1946. Final datasets are versioned annually; Candidate event data is released monthly with no more than one month's lag globally. The API allows 5,000 requests per day, errors included, and requires paging.
Verdict
A structured event and risk signal for tracking armed-conflict intensity, actors, locations and fatality ranges across countries and regions. Candidate data is timelier but provisional, while final releases can revise coding, dates, locations and fatality estimates. Fatality fields are estimates with low and high variants, and the event definitions cover organized violence rather than every security incident. Token requests are reviewed in three to five working days, API use is capped daily, and downstream use must preserve attribution under CC BY 4.0.
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Use in your agent
Load one UCDP GED page into pandas and Parquet. Checked against the provider's documentation on Nov 1, 2026.
Access
- Request a free access token from the API maintainer and briefly describe the intended use; UCDP says review takes three to five working days.
- Set UCDP_API_TOKEN and send it in the x-ucdp-access-token header.
Request
curl -H "x-ucdp-access-token: $UCDP_API_TOKEN" 'https://ucdpapi.pcr.uu.se/api/gedevents/26.1?pagesize=100&page=1'Format
Paginated JSON with TotalCount, TotalPages, page URLs and Result records containing event IDs, actors, country and administrative areas, latitude and longitude, date ranges, violence type, sources and fatality estimates.
Load into pandas and Parquet
Needs Python 3 with requests, pandas and pyarrow.
"""One page of UCDP GED 26.1 events -> pandas -> Parquet."""
import os
import requests
import pandas as pd
URL = "https://ucdpapi.pcr.uu.se/api/gedevents/26.1"
headers = {"x-ucdp-access-token": os.environ["UCDP_API_TOKEN"]}
params = {"pagesize": 100, "page": 1}
r = requests.get(URL, headers=headers, params=params, timeout=60)
r.raise_for_status()
payload = r.json()
df = pd.json_normalize(payload["Result"], sep="_")
df.to_parquet("ucdp_ged_26_1_page1.parquet", index=False)
print(len(df), "events of", payload["TotalCount"], "total", payload["TotalPages"], "pages")Not run: it needs a free API key.
Limits
- Rate limit: 5,000 requests per day; errors count.
- Large resources require paging; follow TotalPages or NextPageUrl.
- A page number far outside the result set can return a server error instead of an empty page.
Quirks
- Every request must specify a dataset version, and a versioned URL is intended to remain reproducible.
- StartDate and EndDate filter date_end rather than a generic event timestamp.
- Invalid filter names are ignored, while invalid filter values return an empty result set.
Terms and attribution
- UCDP datasets are licensed CC BY 4.0.
- Cite the relevant publications listed for the dataset and version used.
Sources
- https://ucdp.uu.se/apidocs/: “the API is free of charge”
- https://ucdp.uu.se/apidocs/: “5,000 requests per day”
- https://ucdp.uu.se/downloads/: “All datasets are free of charge and licensed under CC BY 4.0”
- https://ucdp.uu.se/downloads/: “published at a monthly release cycle”
Information and education only. Not financial, investment, legal or tax advice. Listings can be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date and are provided "as is". Free tiers, limits and licenses belong to each provider and can change, so check the provider's own terms before you rely on them. Terms & Disclaimer