The World Factbook Totally Explained

Everything about The World Factbook totally explained

The World Factbook (ISSN ; also known as the CIA World Factbook) is an annual publication of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The Factbook provides a two- to three-page summary of the demographics, geography, communications, government, economy, and military of 266 U.S.-recognized countries, dependencies, and other areas in the world. The World Factbook is prepared by the CIA for the use of U.S. government officials, and its style, format, coverage and content are primarily designed to meet their requirements. However, it's frequently used as a resource for student papers, web sites and non-governmental publications. As a work of the U.S. government, it's in the public domain.

Factbook sources

In researching the Factbook, the CIA uses the sources listed below. Other public and private sources are also consulted.

Frequency of updates and availability

Before November 2001, The World Factbook website was updated yearly. Since then, the Factbook website is updated every two weeks; the print edition is still updated annually. is used in preparing the printed Factbook, which is released around the middle of each year. The World Factbook has been available to the public in print since 1975 The Web version gets an average of 6 million visits per month; The official printed version is sold at cost by the Government Printing Office and National Technical Information Service. In past years, the Factbook was available on CD-ROM, microfiche, magnetic tape, and floppy disk.

Reprints

Many Internet sites use information and images from the CIA World Factbook. Several publishers, including Grand River Books, Potomac Books (formerly known as Brassy's Inc.), and Skyhorse Publishing have re-published the factbook in recent years.

Entities in the Factbook

As of February 2008, The World Factbook consists of 266 entities. but other areas of the world whose status is disputed, such as the Spratly Islands, have entries. Subnational areas of countries (such as US States or the Canadian provinces and territories) are not included in the Factbook. Instead, users looking for information about subnational areas are referred to "a good encyclopedia" for their reference needs. This criterion was invoked in the 2007 edition with the decision to drop the entries for French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Reunion. They were dropped due to the fact that besides being overseas departments, they were now overseas regions, and an integral part of France.

Kashmir ť Maps depicting Kashmir have the India–Pakistan border drawn at the Line of Control, but the region of Kashmir administered by China drawn in hash marks.

; Northern Cyprus ť Northern Cyprus isn't given a separate entry or listed as part of Turkey because "territorial occupations/annexations not recognized by the United States Government are not shown on U.S. Government maps."

Taiwan/Republic of China ť Taiwan has a separate entry not listed under T, but at the bottom of the list. The name "Republic of China" isn't listed as Taiwan's "official name" under the "Government" section, due to U.S. acknowledgement of Beijing's One-China policy according to which there's one China - the People's Republic of China - and Taiwan is a part of it. The name "Republic of China" was briefly added on January 27, 2005 but has since been changed back to "none".

Macedonia ť The Republic of Macedonia is entered under Macedonia. This is despite the fact that no international organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, NATO, the European Broadcasting Union, and the International Olympic Committee use this short form (they all use the phrase The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). The history of the name used for the entry is a bit complex. In the 1992 edition of The World Factbook, the entry for the nation was listed under the former (at the same time, new entries were added for the then 20 nations that were formed out of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia; the latter two being dropped.) In the 1994 edition, the name of the entry was changed to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. For the next decade, this was the name the nation was listed under. Finally, in the 2004 edition of the Factbook, the name of the entry was changed back to Macedonia. This came after a November 2004 US decision to refer to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as the Republic of Macedonia. (See also Macedonia naming dispute.)

European Union ť On December 16, 2004, the CIA added an entry for the European Union (EU). (Before this date, the EU was excluded from the Factbook.) According to the CIA, the European Union was added because the EU "continues to accrue more nation-like characteristics for itself". The old entries for each individual insular area remain as redirects on the Factbook website. On September 7, 2006, the CIA also merged the entries for Bassas da India, Europa Island, the Glorioso Islands, Juan de Nova Island, and Tromelin Island into a new Iles Eparses entry. As with the new United States Pacific Island Wildlife Refuges entry, the old entries for these five islands remained as redirects on the website. On July 19, 2007 the Iles Eparses entry and redirects for each island were dropped due to the group becoming a district of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands in February.

Yugoslavia/Serbia and Montenegro ť Yugoslavia has had a confusing history in the Factbook. Before 1992, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) was included in the Factbook. In 1992, the entry was dropped This was done in accordance with a May 21, 1992 decision by the US Government not to recognize the FRY (or any of the other republics) as successor states to the recently dissolved SFRY. The US Government also decided not recognize the FRY itself as a state. ť These views were made clear in a disclaimer printed in the Factbook:

ť Besides the disclaimer, the republics of Serbia and Montenegro were treated separately in the data, as can be seen in the map to the right. In October 2000, Slobodan Milošević resigned after a disputed election held the previous month. This event caused a change in the 2001 edition of the Factbook, with the Serbia and Montenegro entity being renamed Yugoslavia. On March 14, 2002, an agreement was signed to transform the FRY into a loose state union called Serbia and Montenegro; it took effect on February 4, 2003. The name of the Yugoslavia entity was changed in the Factbook the month after the change.

East Timor/Timor-Leste ť On July 19, 2007 the entry for East Timor was renamed Timor-Leste following a decision of the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN).

Kosovo ť On February 28, 2008 the CIA added an entry for Kosovo; before this, Kosovo wasn't included in the Factbook and Serbia This terse, confusing description in reference to the Act of Union 1801 has since been greatly expanded.

ISBN numbers

This is a list of International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) for the Government edition of The World Factbook. ISBNs for the Potomac Books and Skyhorse Publishing reprints of the Factbook are noted as well. For the reprint editions, the year of the data is in parentheses.

government editions:

2000: ISBN 0-16-061343-4

2001: ISBN 0-16-066404-7

2002: ISBN 0-16-067601-0

2003: ISBN 0-16-067943-5

2004: ISBN 0-16-073030-9

2005: ISBN 0-16-074941-7

2006: ISBN 0-16-076547-1

2007: ISBN 978-0-16-078580-1

2008: TBD

Potomac Books reprints:

2000 (1999): ISBN 157488266X

2001 (2000): ISBN 1574883461

2002 (2001): ISBN 1574884751

2003 (2002): ISBN 157488641X

2004 (2003): ISBN 1574888374

2005 (2004): ISBN 1574889427

2006 (2005): ISBN 1574889974

2007 (2006): ISBN 159797109X

2008 (2007): ISBN 1597971820

Skyhorse Publishing reprints:

2008 (2007): ISBN 978-1-60239-080-5

Further Information

Get more info on 'The World Factbook'.

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