Excel Formula INDEX MATCH with 2 criteria

Question

I'm trying to get the specific population for a country in a certain year. $B4 is a specific country while in an external spreadsheet's column A, hence '[World Population.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A:$A contains the name $B4. For row 2, it has the years. Excel is telling me #N/A. I'm not sure what did I do wrong with the formula?

=INDEX('[World Population.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A$3:$BX$291,MATCH($B4,'[World Population.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A:$A,0),MATCH("1999", '[World Population.xlsx]Sheet1'!$2:$2),0)

Answer 1

You have the penultimate bracket in the wrong place, and you should line your ranges up:

=INDEX('[World Population.xlsx]Sheet1'!$B$3:$BX$291,MATCH($B4,'[World Population.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A$3:$A$291,0),MATCH("1999", '[World Population.xlsx]Sheet1'!$B$2:$BX$2,0))

or if the year is stored as a number, use:

=INDEX('[World Population.xlsx]Sheet1'!$B$3:$BX$291,MATCH($B4,'[World Population.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A$3:$A$291,0),MATCH(1999, '[World Population.xlsx]Sheet1'!$B$2:$BX$2,0))