**BACKGROUND:** The survey stands out as one of the most significant methodological innovations in the history of the social sciences. The instrument has made possible the efficient and reliable collection of measurements on individual attitudes, beliefs, values, behaviors, traits, and states (Alwin 2009), and coupled with modern sampling techniques, surveys have allowed researchers to generalize findings to much larger populations with remarkable precision. Survey data have helped governments to obtain essential descriptive information on, for example, their citizen’s living standards, demographic attributes, health status, purchasing intentions. Such data have, in turn, been used to craft evidence-based social and economic policies, more accurately forecast labor market participation and project population distributions, and monitor poverty rates. Commercial firms, especially those in the fields of market research and consumer behavior, have also been influential in the development of methods and the production of designed data (Groves 2011). Social scientists use survey data to study a wide range of social, economic, political, demographic, and cultural topics and to collect measurements of voter preferences, personality traits, social networks, and public opinions, to name a few. Survey data are an essential component of evidence-based social policy-making and program monitoring and evaluation and vital tool for understanding the worldviews and aspirations of publics around the world. The progression of the social survey from its origins as a community and, later, national measuring device was attended by greater consensus and less variation in survey design and administration. Over the course of more than 60 years of cross-cultural survey research, the standardized survey (Gobo and Mauceri 2014; Harkness 2010) became the de facto one, with hallmark features including an almost exclusive reliance on input harmonized questionnaires and closed-ended questions, English language parent survey back translated into local-language-administered surveys, and best efforts at nationally representative sampling techniques that allow for generalization to, in most cases, the non-institutionalized adult population. With few exceptions, survivor programs originated in rich, western countries, and among survey programs originating in non-western countries, survey design and content has often been patterned after surveys designed to measure attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, states, and institutions endemic to western, industrialized societies. This is not to say that cross-national survey programs are monolithic or lacking in variety of design, content, international membership, and purposes. **THE DATA:** To get a clearer understanding of how the social survey has spread around the world over the last 60 years, we collected information from just under 40 international survey programs and compiled it into a time-series data set that allows researchers to empirically evaluate the global social survey data infrastructure from a life-history perspective. Collectively, these 40 survey programs have fielded over 7000 national social surveys comprising nearly 8 million completed interviews on a broad range of social, economic, and political topics. Units of analysis in the data set are survey programs and national social surveys. Additional data about programs and surveys include samples sizes, data collection methods, fielding dates, and countries surveyed, to name a few. **PARTICIPATING SOCIAL SURVEY PROGRAMS:** How Nations See Each Other (HNSEO) Pattern of Human Concerns Data (PHCD) Civic Culture Study (CCS) Attitudes Toward Europe Study (ATE) Political Participation and Equality (PPE) Eurobarometer (EUROB) European Values Study (EVS) World Values Survey (WVS) International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) The Political Culture of Southern Europe (PCSE) Central and Eastern Eurobarometer (CEEB) Post-Communist Publics (PCP) New European Barometer (NEB) Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP) New Soviet Citizen Surveys (NSCS) Values and Political Change in Post-Communist Europe (VPCP) Latinobarometro (LATINB) Coping with Government in the Former Soviet Union (CGFE) Afrobarometer (AFROB) Asia Europe Survey (ASES) Voice of the People Surveys (VOTP) Asian Barometer (ASIANB) Candidate Countries Eurobarometer (CCEB) Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) European Social Survey (ESS) Pew Global Attitudes Surveys (PGAS) Worldviews 2002 (WORLD)* Asia Barometer (ASIAB) Transatlantic Trends Survey (TTS) AmericasBarometer (AMERAB) Arab Barometer (ARABB) East Asia Social Survey (EASS) The Globalization of Personal Data Project (GPD) A Quest for Citizenship in an Ever Closer Europe (INTUNE) Caucasus Barometer (CAUCAB) Transatlantic Trends: Immigration (TTI) EU Neighbourhood Barometer (EUNB)