Open Data Advent 2023

The yearly advent calendar of the Swiss open data community is here! The first door of the Open Data Advent Calendar 2023 just opened. Look forward to daily, exciting topics and datasets from December 1 to 24. We are broadcasting on various social media, and bringing all the content together here:

Please boost / post / rexeet! :heart: :christmas_tree:

Why Reciprocal, you may ask? Firstly, because it’s the Season of Giving, and we should support other data gathering activities and community “calendars” where it’s about gratitude and giving something back. (Italian: reciproco, French: réciproque, German: Reziprok)

Secondly, because we could use this domain name to archive the data of Calendars past all the way to anno 2016, and perhaps push it from there to opendata.swiss. And lastly, but not in the least, because we all want to get more familiar with a probability and statistics here! :nerd_face:

To convince Father Christmas that you’ve been good and kind: Here are the locations of the smiley speed signs in Basel. Stick to the speed limit and get the green smileys! Time for a quick little quiz:

Which suburb has the fastest smileys?

  1. Muttenz
  2. Bettingen
  3. Bruderholz

In which month was this dataset first published?

  1. March
  2. April
  3. July

What does the “Smileys in Betrieb” button do?

  1. Shows a map that will make you smile
  2. Sends you on a secret smiley mission
  3. Shows which smileys are operating now

SBB has properties all over Switzerland. You can find them all on our map. This lake is the largest single property by area. Can you find it in the data?

More tips and quiz-questions on reciprocal.opendata.ch.

Christmas lights also mean more electricity! :star2: Find out here in which months electricity consumption rises particularly sharply in the canton of Basel-Stadt.

  • Can you see which months were the highest and lowest this year?
  • How could you explain the trend over the past decade in the data?
  • Where do you think the potential lies in municipal energy policies?

Have you ever bought a gift direct from the manufacturer? A walk into the data on toys and toymakers could be worth your while. Open the door to play with our daily Advent’s Calendar on the tradition of gift-giving, searching for toy dates and a map to help you find your way to playful presents this festive season.

Would love to hear from you on what kind of digital sustainability and open data topics should be of concern to holiday shoppers this year, whether consumer behavior itself is a topic, and how could we better connect the dots between traditional handcraft and global industries through the lens of data!

A reason to celebrate: the OGD Masterplan 2024-2027 has been adopted! It defines 5 guidelines for Open Government Data in :switzerland:: availability, quality of (metadata), infrastructure, synergies between areas and exchange between providers and users of OGD.

Join our dedicated forum thread:

How about a trip to the south as a gift idea for you and your loved ones? This data set on daily sunshine duration at the Basel/Binnigen measuring station might convince you.

Photo: meteoswiss.admin.ch :point_left: explore the whole network of measuring stations and find lots more charts here.

Historical photos from swisstopo as a free gift idea :christmas_tree:

:mag_right: Select your favourite photo :arrow_down: Click Download :printer: Print it out :framed_picture: Frame it … :gift: … and the perfect Christmas present is ready!

A couple of people have told me this is their favorite advent’s window yet!


This image (CC0 license) was made using Inkscape, GIMP and Stable Diffusion, using public domain photography of the Swiss Federal Palace.

Money and Politics is a collaboration between WAV Recherchekollektiv, Lobbywatch, Opendata.ch and investigativ.ch. The project is supported by the Mercator Foundation Switzerland, the Gottlieb and Hans Vogt Foundation and the Oertli Foundation.

See also:

Unfortunately, not all places are accessible for around 20% of people in Switzerland. People with disabilities need reliable and standardised information so that they can plan their trip independently. We would like to contribute to this by providing you with the following data sets and links:

Is barrier-free travel also a topic close to your heart? Or do you have any other creative ideas for using these data sets? See ideas being bounced around, and join the discussion:

Check out all the projects or download data of last week’s event:

Screenshot of Open Data Hack St.Gallen

Just in time for the Advent season, Open Data Kanton Thurgau has another office that is publishing OGD for the first time :tada: Explore the new datasets of the Sports Office of the Canton of Thurgau now!

:technologist: Tip via Felix Lorenz: With starter codes you can now easily use the #OGD of the Canton of Thurgau. R and Python notebooks and R Markdown files that you can use to get started right away can be found here:

The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference #COP28 ends today. For Switzerland, the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology :point_right: MeteoSwiss provides climate baselines and will make its data available as Open Data by 2026. Take a look at which data MeteoSwiss is preparing as OGD and share your questions and needs with the :point_right:Implementation team.

See also:

A hard & honest look in the mirror is the foundation of a sustainable, future-oriented society. Today, as it is decided who stands at the top of the political pyramid in Switzerland, we would like to highlight the work of researchers and journalists, businesses and non-profits working to close the gender data gap.

In other news …


As we all know, the areas of application for open data are endless. Our colleagues at the Zurich Statistical Office have already made a habit of creating creative & opendataful Christmas greetings every year. This year again! (in German)

2023 was an eventful year for opendata.swiss, with 16 new organisations, over 10,000 datasets published, the new OGD Masterplan, 2nd version of the DCAT-AP CH and numerous events and much more - it continues in 2024!

We made the quick visualization to show the cumulative publication counts of the different political levels over time. For details and sources visit the repository:

In other news, the Swiss Federal Council just opened a consultation on the new Federal Statistics Ordinance:

15.12.2023 - At its meeting on 15 December 2023, the Federal Council opened the consultation on the new Ordinance on Federal Statistics. This regulates the activities of all federal statistics producers, in particular the conduct of surveys and interviews, the processing and use of data for statistical purposes and the various services in the field of data science and artificial intelligence.

We are exporting the data of our community events to an open data package. Today we are updating it with fresh data from 2023 events. In the GitHub Issues page we are looking for your suggestions for improving this dataset and putting it to use. Some ideas are from an initial meeting with hackathon organizers at Hack:Org:X v.1.

Soon we will be enjoying several days off, plan them carefully with data on POIS (Points of Interest). Whether you want to relax, sightsee or shop, you’ll find the data here: tourismdata.ch. Besides open datasets, you can find ongoing analytics projects and insights on the portal.

To ensure that passenger information in public transport works smoothly in such cases, the SIRI-SX / VDV736 interface ensures that passengers are informed promptly and comprehensively. What other application ideas do you have?

Check out the open API: https://api.opentransportdata.swiss/siri-sx
And find an example of how to use the service here:

Christmas and the year 2024 are approaching. Time for an outlook on electricity prices in the new year. :zap::money_with_wings: Based on the data from ElCom in LINDAS, @ogd_BL has published a dashboard for the canton of Basel-Landschaft.

This tempts another look at the Energy Hackdays 2023 challenges: