It's already been a big month for Data.gov.
Metadata for nearly 60,000 new datasets were added to the Federal Data Catalog (FDC) on Data.gov in the first two weeks of 2026. The totals reported on the Data.gov landing page rose from 376,504 on midnight January 1st to 433,944 at noon January 13th. Almost all of that increase was the result of adding new federal data assets to the catalog, which now appear to total 397,191.
Based on monthly archived snapshots of Data.gov via the Internet Archive’s WayBackMachine, this is the largest month-to-month gain in assets in years. So what was added? The increase can mostly be attributed to activity from two agencies. The Census Bureau added an updated tranche of over 33,000 of its geographic shapefiles to its public data releases in late December. And, the Department of the Interior (DOI) added over 4,000 newly released datasets to its comprehensive data inventory this month.
While shapefiles are critical for many businesses, researchers, and organizations they are rather banal geospatial data. The update from DOI is arguably more exciting with datasets such as the “Database of Marine Mammal and Seabird Research Activity in the Pacific” and “Lead (Pb) in Bald and Golden Eagles from 38 United States, USA, 2010-2018” becoming indexed into the FDC this year. Many of those datasets, including the lead poisoning of eagles data, were already publicly available. Having them indexed in the Federal Data Catalog increases agency compliance with the Open Government Data Act and makes the datasets much more findable. You can browse more than 90,000 DOI datasets, sorted by the most recent additions, here.