This template contains various independently retrievable data items about Earth in the form of parameter values of a variable template of choice, in a standardized fashion. It is a member of a family of templates, those with names starting with "Data" in Category:Data templates. The system used is similar to that of Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template.

Parameter name Value Meaning
1 {{{1}}} last part of template name, used to identify it within the family of templates[1]
article article name; needs to be specified only if it differs from {{{1}}}; in applications, use [[{{{article|{{{1}}}}}}]] to link to the article (as has been done at the top of this page)
short name shorter display name to be used in some contexts; an application or application parameter can specify whether this is used; only intended for dispensing with disambiguation in a context where it is not needed
type type of entity, e.g. continent, country, province, municipality
code code
code description code description
continent continent, if type is lower than "continent"
country country, if type is lower than "country"
province province, if type is lower than "province"
popbase population on a given date (stored without commas)
popbaseyear year for which the population base figure applies
popbasemonth month for which the population base figure applies
popbaseday day for which the population base figure applies
popinc population increase per day; used to extrapolate the population figure
land area land area in km2 (stored without commas)
total area total area in km2 (stored without commas)
flag image name of the flag image (or other illustration, if there is no flag) shown above

Throughout the family of templates, fixed names are used for the parameters. (The parameter names are kept short to reduce counts for the post expand include size and the template argument size in cases where these are applicable.) However, not necessarily all parameters have been given a value: some parameters may not be applicable, while for some other parameters the value may just have not been specified yet. The table shows all parameters, and for each the value, if specified.


  1. It may seem odd, but a template cannot retrieve its own name (PAGENAME only provides this on the template page itself), and even if it could, a string operation would be needed to remove "Data ". Putting the name of the entity in the data template removes the need to supply it as a parameter when the data template is called (in the cases that it would need this name).