This Wikipeida article provides a nice summary of the US government data gathering with links to the principle agencies with legal mandates to collect and publish data.
This is the official, authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States. Published by the US Census Bureau.
Provide excellent essays on the history of US agencies statistics gathering as well as time series data.
Provides a comprehensive compendium of statistics from over 1,000 sources recording every aspect of the history of the United States from population to prices; from voting patterns to Vietnam veterans; from energy to education; from abortions to zinc and everything in between. Over 80 scholars have contributed their efforts and expertise to select, assemble, and document the data, to write the introductory essays, and to analyze the material.
Provides a seamless way to discover data repositories from scholarly articles.
The Data Citation Index on the Web of Scienceā¢ platform provides a single point of access to quality research data from repositories across disciplines and around the world. Through linked content and summary information, this data is displayed within the broader context of the scholarly research, enabling users to gain perspective that is lost when data sets or repositories are viewed in isolation. These connections allow researchers to efficiently access an array of data across subjects and regions, providing a comprehensive picture of research output, to maximize research efforts and accurately assess importance.
The National Population Census of China Database (NPCC) provides access to digitized reports and Excel files of the population census published by China Statistics Press. Currently, Penn State has access to data from the 4th (1990), 5th (2000) and 6th (2010) censuses. Included are key publications from China's Five-Years Plan for Economic and Social Development. This resource includes population data of the whole country, 31 provinces and centrally administered municipalities. Bilingual (Chinese and English) display is provided. You may switch between languages at the top left corner.