Latvia 46% open

Unemployment

GDP

population

The Central Election Commission publishes election results (for both general and EP elections). Each election instance, however, has its own web page and there is no central starting point where you could find all results together.

I was not sure if the dataset qualifies as machine-readable -- the situation varies in every case with most results available as HTML tables located on multiple web pages:

• 12th Saeima election (the most recent general election) results are published as XML: http://sv2014.cvk.lv/index_rez.html
• 2014 European Parliament election results are published as HTML tables only: http://ep2014.cvk.lv/index_rez.html
• 11th Saeima election results are published are published as HTML tables only: http://www.cvk.lv/cgi-bin/wdbcgiw/base/Saeima11.GalRez_s11
• the formats of earlier election results vary, but are either HTML tables (semi-machine-readable) or not machine-readable

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

Update (2015): the situation is the same as in 2014. There have been no new election since then.

Enterprise register's data is published in a structured form and updated daily. Benefits from timely updates: organisations requiring Enterprise register statistics can just grab the file instead of filing official requests, thus saving time and effort.

Files include basic information about enterprises but lack more detailed information. Enterprise register sells access to detailed information to commercial companies for a considerable fee (in tens of thousands EUR) which can resell this information to everyone else.

This is one of the best open data examples in Latvia, but it is difficult to find - you have to know the URL of the open data server or the path to take through register's website in order to find a link to the open data server.

Update 2015: situation has not changed since 2014 and the answers are the same (URL valid, dataset updated regularly).

The state budget for recent years is published as semi-structured XLS files (cell text indentation level shows budget entry hierarchy, not entirely machine-readable): http://www.fm.gov.lv/files/valstsbudzets/2014/4piel_2014_budzets_131113.xls

URL for state budget 2014: http://www.fm.gov.lv/lv/sadalas/valsts_budzets/2014__gada_budzets/

• see "4.pielikums" for the main budget and "5.pielikums" for the special / social insurance fund budget

The archive of state budget data for previous years (year 2013 shown by default, see the sidebar for earlier years): http://www.fm.gov.lv/lv/sadalas/valsts_budzets/valsts_budzeta_likums_arhivs/2013_gads/

Update (2015): situation is the same as in 2014. Updated the dataset URL field to the current year (state budget 2015).

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

Air polution monitoring data is published once a month. Queries can be made for custom time periods. Measurements include the maximum concentration of carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and particulate matter.

Air quality measurements are taken by automatic DOAS OPSIS stations ensuring continuous registration of polluting substances.

Update (2015):

• Not sure if we should consider this dataset timely or not. Changed the answer to "unsure" for now. While the dataset is published regularly and in a timely manner, each location has just one measurement set per month.

• This dataset has 3 types of measurements out of 5 listed in the census criteria. It does not include measurements for Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and Carbon monoxide (CO).

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

There are plans for making the data available in machine readable form.

Likumi.lv is a legislation website ensuring free access to systematized (consolidated) legislation of the Republic of Latvia. Its operation is regulated by the Law on Official Publications and Legal Information. - http://likumi.lv/about.php

• likumi.lv is for systematized, consolidated laws and other legislative acts (complete texts) while https://www.vestnesis.lv/ publishes official decisions which are incremental (you may have separate publications for the initial law and tens of amendments. - if there are any inconsistencies between these two sources, what was published in Latvijas Vēstnesis is the official version. That's why the law states that Latvijas Vēstnesis is the official publication and likumi.lv is for "informative purposes".

The official publisher Latvijas Vestnesis does not receive budget funding for maintenance of Likumi.lv. It is maintained from the earnings of Latvijas Vestnesis (the costs are covered from the charge for the official publication paid by the information submitter, unless otherwise provided by a law or Cabinet Regulations).

Regarding information reuse Likumi.lv points to the legislation that determines how this information can be reused and sets the fee for reuse (however, it is not clear what is meant by reuse and if, e.g., publishing law excerpts on a website requires paying the fee or not):

• http://likumi.lv/doc.php?id=254491
• http://likumi.lv/doc.php?id=249322#p18

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

Update (2015): the situation is the same as in 2014. This data is free to read but definitely not openly licensed as its terms of use state that:

• there is a fee for data reuse
• you may publish links to its entries (i.e. deep links to the website) provided that you attribute the data source

The data is available in the http://www.kadastrs.lv website. Some of the data can be viewed online without restrictions, more detailed information can be accessed and downloaded after paying a fee.

There are several institutions monitoring water quality. VSIA "Latvijas Vides, ģeoloģijas un meteoroloģijas centrs" (http://www.meteo.lv) gathers most of the data: http://parissrv.lvgmc.lv/#viewType=home_view There is no protocol for data to be updated on weekly basis. Some of the chemicals for example "fecal coliform" only is tested if there is a request for it.

Unsure how to answer the "Available for free" and "Machine-readable" criteria:

• there is an online version http://kartes.lgia.gov.lv/karte/ which is free but not machine-readable (it's an online map)
• detailed machine-readable versions are also available (as OGC WMS, OGC WFS services, etc.) but it is a paid service and it is not clear how to get access to them. here's the official publication with a list of fees: http://likumi.lv/doc.php?id=258991

Latvian Geospatial Information Agency: http://www.lgia.gov.lv/en/Par%20mums.aspx

Map services available: http://map.lgia.gov.lv/index.php?lang=2&cPath=4

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

Data did not change from 2014

The Treasury has detailed up-to-date spending information, but this information is not available online.

There is a service "Valsts budžeta iestāžu izdevumi": http://www.kase.gov.lv/?module=maks&object_id=7446 that claims to provide daily expenditure information but it does not return any data.

The service at www.kase.gov.lv only has old (most recent: 2013) non-machine-readable PDF data behind a JS form and captcha and provides aggregated data, not transactional.

Data matching the listed criteria does not exist.

Latvia Post has a related dataset: ZIP-code index page ("Pasta indeksu grāmata") containing a number of XLS files in unstructured / semi-structured form.

It shows the mapping between locations (towns, street addresses, etc.) and relevant ZIP-codes but does not contain geo-coordinates nor is there another service where one could resolve ZIP-codes to geo-coordinates.