# Retrieving other information on CountryData

The following input will produce some answers, however how do we find out other details, such as the specific year the result corresponds to, as well as the source from which the data is obtained?

CountryData["France", "MaleElderlyPopulation"]

CountryData["Australia", "MaleElderlyPopulation"]


Referring to the documentation:

CountryData["France", "MaleElderlyPopulation", "Date"]

(* 2013 *)


The annotation (3rd argument) provides the date and general source information is provided here.

• I note that none of the listed sources dates from after 2008, so this actually doesn't source the above piece of information... – Sjoerd C. de Vries Jul 23 '14 at 12:47
• @SjoerdC.deVries shame on me for not checking the validity of the sources. I went with the old "if it's on the internet, it must be true" adage. – bobthechemist Jul 23 '14 at 13:21
• I notice that the input requiring data for a range of years work well only for some attributes. For instance, the command given below goes well, whereas if I replace "GDP" by "MaleElderlyPopulation", it complains. DateListPlot[{CountryData["Australia", {{"GDP"}, {1970, 2012}}], CountryData["France", {{"GDP"}, {1970, 2012}}]}, PlotLegends -> {"Australia", "France"}] – thils Jul 23 '14 at 23:36

For what it is worth: If you formulate the query as a Wolfram Alpha query you get

WolframAlpha["male elderly population in France", {{"Result", 1}, "Content"}]


So, apparently this estimate dates from 2013.

As to the sources used: If you enter == at the beginning of the line you get a W|A box in which you can enter the same string ("male elderly population in France") as above. If you click on the "+" button next to the Wolfram Alpha icon on the bottom right of the resulting W|A pod you can choose a link to the sources.

I assume results of W|A and CountryData will be tapped from the same source.