How big are arms sales to the Middle East and North Africa? The unrest in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and across the region has brought attention to one of the UK's most successful export markets: military equipment.

It's a world shrouded in secrecy, and centred on giant arms fairs, such as Idex, taking place in Abu Dhabi. In the UK the international arms trade is managed by Strategic Export Controls, which grant licenses. They're not just for arms, but for a whole range of 'controlled' products. Here's the official take from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills:

The Export Control Organisation is responsible for legislating, assessing and issuing export and trade licences for specific categories of "controlled" goods. This encompasses a wide range of items including so-called dual-use goods, torture goods, radioactive sources, as well as military items. Whether a licence is required depends on various factors including the items exported and any sanctions in force on the export destination. If items exported from the United Kingdom are controlled, then a licence is needed to legally export. Exporters are responsible for complying with the law, understanding the regulations and keeping informed.

This is isn't everything sold, but the vast majority and everything granted a license is categorised. The official reports (published in PDF format) detail the maximum values of licenses granted in each group. There is a searchable database (you can access it here). But for the breakdowns, you have to use the PDFs. Licenses can and are often revoked - as some have just been to Bahrain.

The reports also provide examples of products which can be sold in each category - and there's also a complete guide to the different codes. It's called the UK Military List, and it details exactly what's controlled.

The data gives a unique insight into the UK's trade in controlled products and weapons in this region. And while demonstrators take to the streets in places like Libya, it's raised the question: have we sold the weapons and riot control equipment being used against the protesters?

Let's look at Libya. The data shows that £215m worth of export licenses for controlled products were granted to companies selling stuff to Libya in the year to the end of September 2010. Of that amount, just under £8m were for equipment defined as military. Those products include riot control gear and tear gas.

Iran features on this list too, not for military equipment but for 'other' products - £424m of them. They include civil jet engines, chemicals and civilian aircraft.

What about the products classified under 'other'? Campaigners such as the Campaign Against the Arms Trade point out that policing what happens to equipment once it gets to a country is impossible. How do you know that a navigation system is not being used in a military aircraft rather than a civil jet?

We have collected this data together, from 1 October 2009 to 1 October 2010 - the first time that this data has been collected on one spreadsheet. It includes:

• All categories of license by Middle East and North African countries

• All the military breakdowns, by category

• A complete breakdown of licenses by country

The full data is below. What can you do with it?

Data summary

Strategic export controls from the UK to the middle east Click heading to sort table. Download this data Country All strategic export licenses Total value of military & military/other licences TOTAL MILITARY LICENSES Examples of products sold Q4 2009 to End Q3 2010 Algeria 270,262,166 270,008,961 5 Combat helicopters Bahrain 6,361,444 3,063,425 45 Aircraft parts; assault rifles; tear gas; ammunition Egypt 16,804,843 4,007,966 31 Bombs, missiles, body armour, Iran 424,174,977 0 0 Non-military such as civil aircraft components, imaging cameras Iraq 476,555,614 4,772,784 31 Body armour, weapon sights, gun parts Israel 26,733,874 4,639,459 91 Armoured plate, gas mask filters, signalling equipment, radar equipment Jordan 20,972,889 11,994,142 51 Armoured vehicles, gun parts, gas mask filters Kuwait 14,487,907 6,473,940 38 Anti-riot shields; patrol boats; military software Lebanon 6,206,142 784,282 5 Body armour; shotguns Libya 214,846,615 33,899,335 25 Ammunition; crowd-control equipment; tear gas Morocco 2,165,881 1,149,102 18 Bomb-making parts; 'swarming' ropes; thermal imaging equipment Oman 13,986,422 9,361,120 122 Combat aircraft parts; parts for unmanned 'drones'; tank parts Qatar 13,122,884 3,875,753 22 Crowd-control ammunition; military cargo vehicles; missile parts Saudi Arabia 139,718,960 64,311,296 98 4-wheel drive vehicles; armoured personnel carriers, air surveillance equipment Syria 2,676,460 30,000 1 Small arms ammunition Tunisia 4,504,745 131,273 10 Radar equipment; gun parts United Arab Emirates 210,415,462 15,890,384 152 Military software; heavy machine guns; weapon sights Yemen 285,247 160,245 4 Body armour; ammunition Total 1,864,282,532 434,553,467 749

• DATA: download the full spreadsheet

More data

Data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian

World government data

• Search the world's government data with our gateway

Development and aid data

• Search the world's global development data with our gateway

Can you do something with this data?

• Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group

• Contact us at data@guardian.co.uk

• Get the A-Z of data

• More at the Datastore directory

• Follow us on Twitter

• Like us on Facebook