dotgov

What is it?

A lightweight Python library for accessing government Open Datasets.

Install

Inside your Python project run:

uv add dotgov

What is uv?

uv is the recommended Python package and project manager.

You can find installation details for your platform in uv's Installation page.

uv add assumes you are working in a Python project with a virtual environment.

Quickstart

SODA API based portal

Finding Open Datasets based on SODA API

You can search the Open Data Network for datasets from locations or subjects of interest around the world.

A minimal example fetching records:

import os

from dotenv import load_dotenv
from dotgov.socrata import Socrata


_ = load_dotenv()

app_token = os.getenv("SOCRATA_TOKEN")


with Socrata(domain="data.seattle.gov", version=3.0, app_token=app_token) as s:
    filters = {
        "where": "datetime between '2025-08-01T00:00:00' and '2025-08-21T23:59:59'",
    }

    for record in s.query_resource("kzjm-xkqj", filters=filters):
        print(record)

What is kzjm-xkqj?

In the SODA API each dataset is identified by a unique 4x4 identifier.

For example, kzjm-xkqj is the dataset ID for Seattle Real Time Fire 911 Calls.

You can find details of each dataset in its About page.