At CEDAR, the subsection the Demographic Data Base has a national responsibility to build population databases of the highest possible quality and disseminate data for research, educational and archival use.
Find out more about the different databases at CEDAR.
Here you can select and extract data from different databases.
Find out how to order data from CEDAR's databases.
The Demographic Data Base (DDB) was first established in 1973 as a pilot project under the Swedish National Archive, funded by the Ministry of Labour. In 1978 Umeå University assumed the future organizational and financial responsibility and the DDB became a part of the university organization. The governmental hand was still there in form of a central government ordinance defining DDB:s mission to register, process and disseminate data for research, educational and archival purposes, and to promote scientific collaboration and method development within these field.
DDB has a long experience of database construction and methodological development. Since the start in 1973 a countless number of customized datasets have been produced and distributed through specified contracts to researchers in Sweden and abroad. Until now their research has resulted in more than a thousand published scientific reports, books and articles within a broad range of academic fields and has been used for many dissertations.
Today DDB is a part of CEDAR. The work takes place at three destinations in Sweden: Umeå, Jörn and Haparanda. Data entry and linkage is accomplished in Jörn and Haparanda while post processing of the data and data extraction is mainly done in Umeå.
The Demographic Data Base has developed into a well-known research resource, both nationally and internationally. So far mainly parish registers from the 18th, 19th, and 20th century, as well as parish statistics from the years 1749-1859 have being digitized. These historical sources contain demographic information about the Swedish population for a long period of time. The information in DDB:s databases is suitable for all forms of research where demographic information on individual level as well as aggregated level is of interest.
Read more about DDB:s history and development:
Edvinsson Sören and Engberg Elisabeth. (2021) 2020. A Database for the Future: Major Contributions from 47 Years of Database Development and Research at the Demographic Data Base. Historical Life Course Studies, December.
