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Large, Free, and Interesting SQL-ready Datasets?

Posted by Cliff on from the drop-in-data dept.

Jon H asks: "I'd like to teach myself various platforms or technologies, involving accessing databases. The problem is, my ideas for projects to learn on usually are boring, toy projects, involving lots of boring data entry in order to create a useful database. Things like personal library databases. This doesn't particularly interest me. It would be much easier if I had a big, interesting dataset which I could load into an SQL database without too much trouble. Then I could spend my time on the php, or WebObjects, or JBoss, or whatever. I'd like something more real than the usual toy demo databases. Something weighty, 20 megabytes and up, big enough for poor software design to cause performance issues which might not be seen in smaller databases. Ideally, it'd be in a form that could easily be loaded into an SQL database, perhaps even including a schema. Any links would be appreciated. Do such beasts exist?

7 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. USDA by L.+VeGas · · Score: 5, Informative

    One I've used for laughs is the USDA Nutrient Database. It gives you, well, nutrient information on just about any food you can think of. It's normalized, and just complicated enough to have fun with.

    You're going to have to google it yourself, though.

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    Best Windows Freeware
    1. Re:USDA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      You're going to have to google it yourself, though.

      ...or click here.

  2. IMDb by br0ck · · Score: 5, Informative

    Use IMDbPY to populate a database with all data from the downloadable files from the Internet Movie Database.

  3. dmoz by heydude · · Score: 3, Informative

    Some folks have used the dmoz data. It is in RDF, so should be fairly flexible enough to get into most databases using most languages and an RDF library.

  4. Some of the fun ones have already been posted. by Deagol · · Score: 2, Informative
    The US Census has tons of great info, as does the USDA Nutrition Database. Mortality stats gathered by the CDC are fun in a morbid kind of way. :)

    There are some great collections of historical climate data out there for free. Here's a source for the Western US (a similiar compilation for the entire US would be great). Some earthquake data can be found here.

    Heck, just enter "raw data" into google, along with your topic of choice, and have fun.

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    Method of processing duck feet
  5. Northwind Database. by Randolpho · · Score: 2, Informative

    30 posts and nobody mentions the Northwind Database that comes with MS Access? You can download it and set it up as an ODBC source, which you can use with pretty much anything. Well, provided you're using Windows. ;)

    Northwind Access 2000 Download page

    --
    "Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
    -Marilyn Manson
  6. Or a non-random name generator by titaniam · · Score: 2, Informative

    Want a whole bunch (most) registered domain names in the world? You'll need to fill out some forms and wait maybe a week (except edu), but it's worth it. Click for biz, edu, int, info, org, com, net. These files are whoppers for the most part. Perl would not read the com file under redhat 6 its' so big. I use them for my surf engine, iconsurf.com.