Your guide to NYC's data landscape

Get up to speed on NYC civic data

NYC government is 50+ agencies, overlapping jurisdictions, and knowledge that often lives in people's heads. This is a curated map of its data landscape — what exists, whether it's usable, how to access it, and how the decisions get made.

Pick a civic problem ↓ Browse the Directory

AnnotatedWhat it is · best for · watch out for · what the data looks like.

Data-landscape firstEvery source flags API / bulk / web-only and official vs. independent.

Shows sources in usePlaybooks walk you from a real question through the sources, step by step.

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What do you want to do?

Pick a civic problem and get a shortlist of 3–5 annotated sources to know where to look on your first day. Each shortlist is copyable straight into a hackathon README.

This problem picker needs JavaScript. You can still browse every source on the Directory and the concepts in The Lay of the Land.

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How this guide is built

A directory that teaches

The Lay of the Land →Plain-language entries that teach who owns what and how decisions are made. The Directory →The curated source catalog. Annotated and filterable by category, official vs. independent, and data access. Playbooks →Four worked scenarios that show the sources used together, step by step.

Descriptions of each source were researched and accurate as of June 2026, and each link was verified to load before the guide went live. Fast-changing details — officeholders, dollar figures, bill numbers — are deliberately left out so the guide stays accurate over time. We flag any details we couldn't confirm.