The World Factbook
Cover of the last government print edition of The World Factbook (2012-13 edition).
Author(s)	Central Intelligence Agency
Language	English
Genre(s)	almanac about the countries of the world
Publisher	Directorate of Intelligence[1]
Publication date	see frequency of updates and availability, no longer published in paper book form by the CIA
ISBN	see the list of ISBNs

The World Factbook (ISSN 1553-8133; also known as the CIA World Factbook)^[2] is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official paper copy version is available from the National Technical Information Service and the Government Printing Office. Other companies—such as Skyhorse Publishing—also print a paper edition. The Factbook is available in the form of a website, which is partially updated every week. It is also available for download for use off-line. It provides a two- to three-page summary of the demographics, geography, communications, government, economy, and military of 267 entities^[3] including 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.^[4] However, it is frequently used as a resource for academic research papers.^[5] As a work of the U.S. government, it is in the public domain in the United States.^[6]

[edit] Factbook sources

In researching the Factbook, the CIA uses the sources listed below. Other public and private sources are also consulted.^[4]

• Antarctic Information Program (National Science Foundation)
• Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (Department of Defense)
• Bureau of the Census (Department of Commerce)
• Bureau of Labor Statistics (Department of Labor)
• Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs
• Defense Intelligence Agency (Department of Defense)
• Department of Energy
• Department of State
• Fish and Wildlife Service (Department of the Interior)
• Maritime Administration (Department of Transportation)
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (Department of Defense)
• Naval Facilities Engineering Command (Department of Defense)
• Office of Insular Affairs (Department of the Interior)
• Office of Naval Intelligence (Department of Defense)
• Oil & Gas Journal
• US Board on Geographic Names (Department of the Interior)
• US Transportation Command (Department of Defense)

Copyright[link]

The World Factbook website as it appeared in January 2010

Because the Factbook is in the public domain, people are free to redistribute and modify it in any way that they like, without permission of the CIA.^[4] However, the CIA requests that it be cited when the Factbook is used.^[6] The official seal of the CIA, however, may not be copied without permission as required by the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949 (50 U.S.C. § 403m).

Frequency of updates and availability[link]

Before November 2001 The World Factbook website was updated yearly;^[7] from 2004 to 2010 it was updated every two weeks;^[7] since 2010 it has been updated weekly.^[8] Generally, information currently available as of January 1 of the current year^[9] is used in preparing the Factbook.

[edit] Government edition of the Factbook

The first, classified, edition of Factbook was published in August 1962, and the first unclassified version in June 1971.^[10] The World Factbook was first available to the public in print in 1975.^[10] In 2008 the CIA discontinued printing the Factbook themselves, instead turning printing responsibilities over to the Government Printing Office.^[11] This happened due to a CIA decision to "focus Factbook resources" on the online edition.^[12] The Factbook has been on the World Wide Web since October 1994.^[13] The Web version gets an average of 6 million visits per month;^[5] it can also be downloaded.^[14] The official printed version is sold^[15] by the Government Printing Office and National Technical Information Service. In past years, the Factbook was available on CD-ROM,^[16] microfiche,^[17] magnetic tape,^[17] and floppy disk.^[17]

Reprints and older editions online[link]

Many Internet sites use information and images from the CIA World Factbook.^[18] Several publishers, including Grand River Books,^[19] Potomac Books (formerly known as Brassey's Inc.),^[20] and Skyhorse Publishing^[21] have re-published the Factbook in recent years.

Older editions of the CIA World Factbook, going back to 1989, country rankings constructed from CIA data, and additional country information from other sources are available at the Countries of the World website, which was begun in 1996.

Entities listed[link]

As of July 2011, The World Factbook consists of 267 entities.^[3] These entities can be divided into categories.^[22] They are:

Independent countries

This category has independent countries, which the CIA defines as people "politically organized into a sovereign state with a definite territory".^[22] In this category, there are 195 entities.

Others

The Other category is a list of other places set apart from the list of independent countries. Currently there are two: Taiwan and the European Union.

Dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereignty

This category is a list of places affiliated with another country. They may be subdivided into categories using the country they are affiliated with:

• Australia: six entities
• China: two entities
• Denmark: two entities
• France: eight entities
• Netherlands: three entities
• New Zealand: three entities
• Norway: three entities
• United Kingdom: seventeen entities
• United States: fourteen entities

Miscellaneous

This category is for Antarctica and places in dispute. There are six entities.

Other entities

This category is for the World and the oceans. There are five oceans and the World (the World entry is intended as a summary of the other entries).^[5]

Territorial issues and controversies[link]

Political[link]

Areas not covered

Specific regions within a country or areas in dispute among countries, such as Kashmir, are not covered,^[23] but other areas of the world whose status is disputed, such as the Spratly Islands, have entries.^[23][24] 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 comprehensive encyclopedia" for their reference needs.^[25] This criterion was invoked in the 2007^[26] and 2011^[27] editions with the decision to drop the entries for French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, and Reunion. They were dropped because besides being overseas departments, they were now overseas regions, and an integral part of France.^[26][27]

Kashmir

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.^[28]

Northern Cyprus

Northern Cyprus, which the U.S. considers part of the Republic of Cyprus, is not given a separate entry because "territorial occupations/annexations not recognized by the United States Government are not shown on U.S. Government maps."^[29]

Taiwan/Republic of China

The name "Republic of China" is not listed as Taiwan's "official name" under the "Government" section,^[30] due to U.S. acknowledgement of Beijing's One-China policy according to which there is one China and Taiwan is a part of it.^[31] The name "Republic of China" was briefly added on January 27, 2005,^[32] but has since been changed back to "none".^[30] The map of the People's Republic of China on the World Factbook shows Taiwan included on the map of China.^[28] (See also: Political status of Taiwan, Legal status of Taiwan)

Burma/Myanmar

The U.S. does not recognize the renaming of Burma by its ruling military junta to Myanmar and thus keeps its entry for the country under "Burma". This is done because the name change "was not approved by any sitting legislature in Burma". As a result, the US government has never adopted the name Myanmar.^[33]

FYROM/ Republic of Macedonia

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is entered as Macedonia,^[34] the name used in its first entry in the Factbook upon independence in 1992.^[35] In the 1994 edition, the name of the entry was changed to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as it is officially recognised by the United Nations (awaiting for the resolution of the Macedonia naming dispute).^[36][37] 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, following a November 2004 US decision to refer to the country using this name,^[38][39] even though the official appelation of the republic within the UN remains FYROM.

European Union

On December 16, 2004, the CIA added an entry for the European Union (EU).^[40] (Before this date, the EU was excluded from the Factbook.^[41]) According to the CIA, the European Union was added because the EU "continues to accrue more nation-like characteristics for itself".^[31]

United States Pacific Island Wildlife Refuges and Iles Eparses

In the 2006 edition of The World Factbook, the entries for Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, Johnston Atoll, Palmyra Atoll and the Midway Islands were merged into a new United States Pacific Island Wildlife Refuges entry.^[42] The old entries for each individual insular area remain as redirects on the Factbook website.^[43] 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.^[44] As with the new United States Pacific Island Wildlife Refuges entry, the old entries for these five islands remained as redirects on the website.^[45] 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.^[46]

Serbia and Montenegro/Yugoslavia

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) broke apart in 1991. The following year, it was replaced in the Factbook with entries for each of its former constituent republics.^[35] In doing this, the CIA listed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), proclaimed in 1992, as Serbia and Montenegro, as the U.S. did not recognize the union between the two republics.^[47][48] This was done in accordance with a May 21, 1992, decision^[49] by the U.S. not to recognize any of the former Yugoslav republics^[50] as successor states to the recently dissolved SFRY.

A map of Serbia and Montenegro from the 2000 edition of The World Factbook.^[51] Notice how the disclaimer is printed in the upper right hand corner. One can see how the capital cities of both republics are individually labeled on the map.

These views were made clear in a disclaimer printed in the Factbook: "Serbia and Montenegro have asserted the formation of a joint independent state, but this entity has not been recognized as a state by the United States."^[52] Montenegro and Serbia were treated separately in the Factbook data, as can be seen on the map.^[53] In October 2000, Slobodan Milošević was forced out of office after a disputed election.^[54] This event led to democratic elections and U.S. diplomatic recognition. The 2001 edition of the Factbook thus referred to the state as Yugoslavia.^[55] On March 14, 2002, an agreement was signed to transform the FRY into a loose state union called Serbia and Montenegro;^[56] it took effect on February 4, 2003.^[57] The name of the Yugoslavia entity was altered in the Factbook the month after the change.^[58]

Kosovo

On February 28, 2008, the CIA added an entry for Kosovo;^[59] before this, Kosovo was excluded in the Factbook.^[23] The Kosovo declaration of independence is supported by the majority of EU member states, but disputed by Serbia,^[60] which continues to regard Kosovo as its own territory, and most other countries.

East Timor/Timor-Leste

On July 19, 2007, the entry for East Timor was renamed Timor-Leste following a decision of the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN).^[61]

Factual[link]

In June 2009, the US National Public Radio (NPR), relying on information obtained from the CIA World Factbook, put the number of Israeli Jews living in settlements in the West Bank and Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem at 250,000. However, a better estimate, based on State Department and Israeli sources put the figure at about 500,000. NPR then issued a correction. Chuck Holmes, foreign editor for NPR Digitial, said, “I’m surprised and displeased, and it makes me wonder what other information is out-of-date or incorrect in the CIA World Factbook.”^[62]

Geographical information about countries in the CIA Factbook may not quite tally with information from Government sources in those countries. For example, the Factbook gives the land area of Australia as 7,682,300 km^2[63] while Geoscience Australia gives the area as 7,692,024 km²,^[64] a difference of 9,724 km². A Fiji Government website gives the land area of the Fiji Islands as 18,333 km^2[65] while the CIA Factbook gives the area as 18,274 km^2[66] a difference of 59 km².

Before 1998, the United Kingdom profile contained a sentence that asserted the UK had gained independence on 1 January 1801.^[67] This description in reference to the Act of Union 1801 which expanded the United Kingdom of Great Britain to include Ireland, has since been greatly expanded,^[68] although the primary date of UK Independence is now given as 1927. This has been argued by some as misleading, and refers to the date the entity adopted its current name under the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act, of that year. Indeed it can be argued the country has never been independent^{[citation needed]} since there is an arguable legitimate succession of states, systems and entities from the Norman Conquest, 1066. It can also be argued that the United Kingdom has been independent since 410 AD, the year that the Romans left Roman Britain.

ISBNs[link]

This is a list of International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) for the Government edition^[69] 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: ISBN 978-0-16-082969-7
• 2009: ISBN 978-0-16-084587-1
• 2010: ISBN 978-0-16-086462-9

Potomac Books reprints

• 2000 (1999): ISBN 1-57488-266-X
• 2001 (2000): ISBN 1-57488-346-1
• 2002 (2001): ISBN 1-57488-475-1
• 2003 (2002): ISBN 1-57488-641-X
• 2004 (2003): ISBN 1-57488-837-4
• 2005 (2004): ISBN 1-57488-942-7
• 2006 (2005): ISBN 1-57488-997-4
• 2007 (2006): ISBN 1-59797-109-X
• 2008 (2007): ISBN 1-59797-182-0
• 2009 (2008): ISBN 1-59797-414-5
• 2010 (2009): ISBN 978-1-59797-541-4
• 2011 (2010): ISBN 978-1-59797-763-0

Skyhorse Publishing reprints

• 2008 (2007): ISBN 978-1-60239-080-5
• 2009 (2008): ISBN 978-1-60239-282-3
• 2010 (2009): ISBN 978-1-60239-727-9
• 2011 (2010): ISBN 978-1-61608-047-1

See also[link]

• World Leaders, another regular publication of the CIA^[70]
• National Security Agency academic publications

Alternative publications

• Europa World Year Book
• The New York Times Almanac
• The World Almanac and Book of Facts
• TIME Almanac with Information Please
• Whitaker's Almanack

References[link]

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the CIA World Factbook.

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: CIA World Fact Book, 2004

• Current CIA World Factbook
• The World Factbook Change Log Detailed changes within the CIA's World Factbook
• CIA World Factbook as XML
• The World Factbook for Google Earth—The Factbook as Google Earth placemarks
• On stephansmap.org—The CIA World Factbook accessible by location and date range; covers the years 2001—2007. All Factbook entries are tagged with "cia". Requires graphical browser with javascript.

[edit] Mobile versions of the Factbook

• Mobile Edition of the CIA World Factbook, last updated 10 June 2008
• World Factbook for Android—optimized CIA World Factbook version for Android Devices
• Mobile World Factbook—Mobile version of World Factbook for Android and J2ME

[edit] The Factbook by year

• Countries of the World - 28 years of CIA World Fact Books (1982–2011)
• Previous editions of The World Factbook from the University of Missouri–St. Louis archive:

1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008

• 1991 CIA World Factbook
• 1990 CIA World Factbook
• 1989 CIA World Factbook
• 1987 CIA World Factbook
• 1986 CIA World Factbook
• 1985 CIA World Factbook
• 1984 CIA World Factbook
• 1982 CIA World Factbook

"The Blue Marble" photograph of Earth, taken from Apollo 17

The flag of the World Health Organization combines a modern world map (azimuthal equidistant projection) with the Rod of Asclepius, in origin a symbol of the axis mundi^[1]

World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth.^[2]

In a philosophical context it may refer to: (1) the whole of the physical Universe, or (2) an ontological world (see world disclosure). In a theological context, world usually refers to the material or the profane sphere, as opposed to the celestial, spiritual, transcendent or sacred. The "end of the world" refers to scenarios of the final end of human history, often in religious contexts.

World history is commonly understood as spanning the major geopolitical developments of about five millennia, from the first civilizations to the present.

World population is the sum of all human populations at any time; similarly, world economy is the sum of the economies of all societies (all countries), especially in the context of globalization. Terms like world championship, gross world product, world flags etc. also imply the sum or combination of all current-day sovereign states.

In terms such as world religion, world language, and world war, world suggests international or intercontinental scope without necessarily implying participation of the entire world.

In terms such as world map and world climate, world is used in the sense detached from human culture or civilization, referring to the planet Earth physically.

Etymology and usage[link]

The English word world comes from the Old English weorold (-uld), weorld, worold (-uld, -eld), a compound of wer "man" and eld "age," which thus means roughly "Age of Man."^[3] The Old English is a reflex of the Common Germanic *wira-alđiz, also reflected in Old Saxon werold, Old High German weralt, Old Frisian warld and Old Norse verǫld (whence the Icelandic veröld).^[4]

The corresponding word in Latin is mundus, literally "clean, elegant", itself a loan translation of Greek cosmos "orderly arrangement." While the Germanic word thus reflects a mythological notion of a "domain of Man" (compare Midgard), presumably as opposed to the divine sphere on the one hand and the chthonic sphere of the underworld on the other, the Greco-Latin term expresses a notion of creation as an act of establishing order out of chaos.

'World' distinguishes the entire planet or population from any particular country or region: world affairs pertain not just to one place but to the whole world, and world history is a field of history that examines events from a global (rather than a national or a regional) perspective. Earth, on the other hand, refers to the planet as a physical entity, and distinguishes it from other planets and physical objects.

'World' can also be used attributively, to mean 'global', 'relating to the whole world', forming usages such as world community or world canonical texts.^[5]

By extension, a 'world' may refer to any planet or heavenly body, especially when it is thought of as inhabited, especially in the context of science fiction or futurology.

'World', in original sense, when qualified, can also refer to a particular domain of human experience.

• The world of work describes paid work and the pursuit of career, in all its social aspects, to distinguish it from home life and academic study.
• The fashion world describes the environment of the designers, fashion houses and consumers that make up the fashion industry.
• historically, the New World vs. the Old World, referring to the parts of the world colonized in the wake of the age of discovery. Now mostly used in zoology and botany, as New World monkey.

Philosophy[link]

The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1503) shows the "garden" of mundane pleasures flanked by Paradise and Hell. The exterior panel shows the world before the appearance of humanity, depicted as a disc enclosed in a sphere.

In philosophy, the term world has several possible meanings. In some contexts, it refers to everything that makes up reality or the physical universe. In others, it can mean have a specific ontological sense (see world disclosure). While clarifying the concept of world has arguably always been among the basic tasks of Western philosophy, this theme appears to have been raised explicitly only at the start of the twentieth century^[6] and has been the subject of continuous debate. The question of what the world is has by no means been settled.

Parmenides

The traditional interpretation of Parmenides' work is that he argued that the every-day perception of reality of the physical world (as described in doxa) is mistaken, and that the reality of the world is 'One Being' (as described in aletheia): an unchanging, ungenerated, indestructible whole.

Plato

In his Allegory of the Cave, Plato distingues between forms and ideas and imagines two distinct worlds : the sensible world and the intelligible world.

Hegel

In Hegel's philosophy of history, the expression Weltgeschichte ist Weltgericht (World History is a tribunal that judges the World) is used to assert the view that History is what judges men, their actions and their opinions. Science is born from the desire to transform the World in relation to Man; its final end is technical application.

Schopenhauer

The World as Will and Representation is the central work of Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer saw the human will as our one window to the world behind the representation; the Kantian thing-in-itself. He believed, therefore, that we could gain knowledge about the thing-in-itself, something Kant said was impossible, since the rest of the relationship between representation and thing-in-itself could be understood by analogy to the relationship between human will and human body.

Wittgenstein

Two definitions that were both put forward in the 1920s, however, suggest the range of available opinion. "The world is everything that is the case," wrote Ludwig Wittgenstein in his influential Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, first published in 1922. This definition would serve as the basis of logical positivism, with its assumption that there is exactly one world, consisting of the totality of facts, regardless of the interpretations that individual people may make of them.

Heidegger

Martin Heidegger, meanwhile, argued that "the surrounding world is different for each of us, and notwithstanding that we move about in a common world".^[7] The world, for Heidegger, was that into which we are always already "thrown" and with which we, as beings-in-the-world, must come to terms. His conception of "world disclosure" was most notably elaborated in his 1927 work Being and Time.

Freud

In response, Freud proposed that we do not move about in a common world, but a common thought process. He believed that all the actions of a person are motivated by one thing: lust. This led to numerous theories about reactionary consciousness.

Other

Some philosophers, often inspired by David Lewis, argue that metaphysical concepts such as possibility, probability and necessity are best analyzed by comparing the world to a range of possible worlds; a view commonly known as modal realism.

Religion and mythology[link]

It has been suggested that World (theology) be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since July 2010.

Mythological cosmologies often depict the world as centered around an axis mundi and delimited by a boundary such as a world ocean, a world serpent or similar.