ACLED
Bringing Clarity to Crisis
To download all ACLED data for the entire time period of coverage, simply click ‘export.’
To download all available ACLED data for a specific time period, enter a date range and click ‘export.’
Please be aware that ACLED covers over 100 countries, but the period of active coverage differs by region and country. For African states, all data are available from 1 January 1997 onwards. For other countries, more recent periods are available. A full list of country and time period coverage can be found here.
To download real-time and historical data for specific event types, select the relevant event types from that category and leave all other categories as they are. All data for the selected event type(s) will be exported.
To download real-time and historical data for a specific actor type or a specific actor, select the relevant actor type or actor in those categories and leave all other categories as they are. All data for the selected actor or actor type(s) will be exported.
To download real-time and historical data for a specific region, country, or location, select the relevant areas from those categories and leave all other categories as they are. All data for the selected area(s) will be exported.
By default, the data are exported in a format where each row represents a single event, on a specific day and location, and involving distinct actors.
An “actor based” file displays events by single actors instead, meaning that events are often repeated if two actors are involved. To determine which of the two file types to use, you should consider whether the data are being used to analyze patterns over time, types of violence, conflict between groups, or locations (which the default file type is best for), or to analyze actor types or specific actors. For the former, the default format should be used, while for the latter, the “actor based” file should be used.
Guides for data use and methodology documents detailing ACLED coding processes can be found here.
Please note: exported data will contain additional columns including a timestamp column which indicates when the data were last updated. Please find a methodology note explaining ACLED timestamps here.
For systems that use semi-colon separated values by default, you may wish to use the “compatibility mode” option.