Armed Conflict Location Event Data

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 (http://www.acleddata.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ACLED_User-Guide-for-Humanitarians_2017.pdf).

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(https://github.com/apfister/lambda-acled).

Data and Resources

Field Value
encoding utf8
harvest_url https://data.humdata.org/dataset/e5bb69cb-5ca9-4da2-98cb-804c38c00d10
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • Global Provider
Tags
  • afrigeo
  • afrigeoss
  • amerigeo
  • amerigeoss
  • ckan
  • eurogeo
  • eurogeoss
  • geo
  • geoss
  • global
  • un-hdx
  • united-nations
isopen True
license_id cc-by
license_title Creative Commons Attribution
license_url http://www.opendefinition.org/licenses/cc-by
maintainer 8e50b7db-23ca-47f9-9dde-1cd40e03f90c
metadata_created 2025-10-01T16:57:42.259524
metadata_modified 2025-10-01T16:57:42.259530
notes 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 (http://www.acleddata.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ACLED_User-Guide-for-Humanitarians_2017.pdf). 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(https://github.com/apfister/lambda-acled).
num_resources 1
num_tags 12
title Armed Conflict Location Event Data