| COW | COW Inter-State War Data, 1816-1997 (v3.0) |
Version 3.0 of the Correlates of War Inter-State War data set identifies interstate wars and their participants between 1816 and 1997. To be classified as an inter-state war, at least two participants in sustained combat should qualify as members of the interstate system and there should be at least 1000 battle related fatalities among all of the system members involved. A state involved is regarded as a participant if it incurs a minimum of 100 fatalities or has 1000 armed personnel engaged in fighting.
In any papers or publications that utilize this data set, users are asked to give the version number and cite the article of record for the data set, as follows:
Bibliography Entry: Sarkees, Meredith Reid (2000). "The Correlates of War Data on War: An Update to 1997," Conflict Management and Peace Science, 18/1: 123-144.
Additional information concerning the procedures followed to generate these data are to be found in the following publications.
Singer, J. David, and Melvin Small (1972). The Wages of War, 1816-1965: A Statistical Handbook. New York: John Wiley.
Small, Melvin, and J. David Singer (1982). Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816-1980. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Version 3.0 of the Correlates of War Inter-State War data set is composed of two files, the formats of which are listed below. The files are CSV with the first line being variable lables. The first file, Inter-State Wars (V 3-0).CSV, presents information about the wars, while the second, Inter-State War Participants (V 3-0).CSV , contains information about the state participation in these wars.
Summaries of the Inter-State Wars and Inter-State War Participants data may also be viewed from this page.
The file has a comma-separated-variable (CSV) format with one record per war. The fields contained in each record are listed below.
| Field |
Content |
|---|---|
| WarNo |
War number |
| WarName |
Name of war |
| YrBeg1 |
First beginning year of war |
| MonBeg1 |
First beginning month of war |
| DayBeg1 |
First beginning day of war |
| YrEnd1 |
First ending year of war |
| MonEnd1 |
First ending month of war |
| DayEnd1 |
First ending day of war |
| YrBeg2 |
Second beginning year of war (-999 = NA) |
| MonBeg2 |
Second beginning month of war (-999 = NA) |
| DayBeg2 |
Second beginning day of war (-999 = NA) |
| YrEnd2 |
Second ending year of war (-999 = NA) |
| MonEnd2 |
Second ending month of war (-999 = NA) |
| DayEnd2 |
Second ending day of war (-999 = NA) |
| Duration |
Length of war in days |
| Deaths |
Total battle deaths |
| CenSubSy |
At least one central sub-system member in war? (0 = no/NA [all coded "0" after 1920], 1 = yes) |
| SubSysEa |
At least one central sub-system member on each side? (0 = no/NA [all coded "0" after 1920], 1 = yes) |
| MajPowIn |
At least one major power in the war? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| MajPowEa |
At least one major power on each side? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| WestHem |
Was any part of the war fought in Western Hemisphere? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| Europe |
Was any part of the war fought in Europe? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| Africa |
Was any part of the war fought in Africa? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| MidEast |
Was any part of the war fought in Middle East? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| Asia |
Was any part of the war fought in Asia? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| Oceania |
Was any part of the war fought in Oceania? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| Edition |
Update code (0 = 1972 original, 1 = 1982 update, 2 = 1990 update, 3 = 1992 update, 4 = 1998 update) |
| Version |
Version number of data set |
The file has a comma-separated-variable (CSV) format with one record per war participant. The fields contained in each record are listed below. NA means "not applicable."
| WarNo |
War number |
| StateNum |
COW country code of participant |
| StateAbb |
Abbreviated name of participant |
| YrBeg1 |
First beginning year of participant's involvement |
| MonBeg1 |
First beginning month of participant's involvement |
| DayBeg1 |
First beginning day of participant's involvement |
| YrEnd1 |
First ending year of participant's involvement |
| MonEnd1 |
First ending month of participant's involvement |
| DayEnd1 |
First ending day of participant's involvement |
| YrBeg2 |
Second beginning year of participant's involvement (-999 = NA) |
| MonBeg2 |
Second beginning month of participant's involvement (-999 = NA) |
| DayBeg2 |
Second beginning day of participant's involvement (-999 = NA) |
| YrEnd2 |
Second ending year of participant's involvement (-999 = NA) |
| MonEnd2 |
Second ending month of participant's involvement (-999 = NA) |
| DayEnd2 |
Second ending day of participant's involvement (-999 = NA) |
| Duration |
Length of war participation in days |
| Deaths |
Number of battle related deaths sustained by participant's armed forces in war (-999= missing) |
| Outcome |
War outcome for participant (1 = on winning side, 2 = on losing side, 3 = on side A of a tie, 4 = on side B of a tie, 5 = on side A of ongoing war, 6 = on side B of ongoing war) |
| Initiate |
Did state initiate war? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| SysStat |
System membership status of state (1 = neither central sub-system member nor major power, 2 = central sub-system member only [only relevant 1816 through 1919], 3 = central sub-system member & a major power [only relevant 1816 through 1919], 4 = major power only) |
| PrWarPop |
Pre-war population in thousands (number from year war begun, -999 = missing) |
| PrWarArm |
Pre-war armed forces in thousands (number from year war begun, -999 = missing) |
| WestHem |
Did state participant engage in fighting in war in Western Hemisphere? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| Europe |
Did state participant engage in fighting in war in Europe? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| Africa |
Did state participant engage in fighting in war in Africa? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| MidEast |
Did state participant engage in fighting in war in Middle East? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| Asia |
Did state participant engage in fighting in war in Asia? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| Oceania |
Did state participant engage in fighting in war in Oceania? (0 = no, 1 = yes) |
| Version |
Version number of data set |
Version 3.0 of the Correlates of War Inter-State War data set is matched to Version 3.10 of the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) data set. Each interstate war between 1816 -1997 has its corresponding dispute. This report
is available for download here.
Zachary Shirkey and Alex Weisiger have written a paper providing an annotated
bibliography for many of the wars in the interstate war data set. This paper
is available for download
here.
The war data sets are hosted by Meredith Sarkees, Women & Politics Institute at American University, and Frank Wayman, University of Michigan-Dearborn, under the COW Data Set Hosting Program. In case of questions or concerns concerning the data or coding rules, they may be contacted by email at sarkees@sbcglobal.net and fwayman@umich.edu.