Public-domain ebook
by United States. Central Intelligence Agency
Language: en3,183 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: CIA World Factbooks·Encyclopedias/Dictionaries/Reference
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #27559.
The 2004 CIA World Factbook is a comprehensive reference handbook compiled by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. It opens with a detailed note on recent revisions, adding the United Kingdom’s Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia as separate entities, listing the European Union as an “Other” entity, and introducing five new data fields such as current‑account balance and refugees. The opening also explains ongoing map updates and the scope of the printed edition, which captures a global snapshot as of 1 January 2004. What follows is an exhaustive alphabetical country listing, a massive field‑by‑field data catalogue, rank‑order tables, and a series of appendixes covering abbreviations, international organizations, environmental agreements, and coding cross‑references.
The work is written in a formal, data‑driven style typical of early‑2000s government publications, with terse explanatory notes and systematic coding. It will appeal to researchers, students of political science, geography, or economics, and anyone needing reliable, static statistical profiles of nations and territories at the start of the twenty‑first century.
The opening · free to read
- Country information has been updated as of 10 February, 2005.
- There have been some significant changes to the latest edition of The World Factbook. Recent confirmation that the United Kingdom Government administers the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia on Cyprus as dependencies (and not as lease areas like the US Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba) has required a changing of their status and their addition to the Factbook as new entities. In addition, the European Union has been included as an "Other" entity at the end of the listing. The European Union continues to accrue more nation-like characteristics for itself and so a separate listing was deemed appropriate. A fuller explanation may be found under the European Union Preliminary statement.
- Along with the new entities and the regular information updates, The World Factbook now also features five new fields. In the Economy category, entries have been added for Current account balance, Investment (gross fixed), Public debt, and Reserves of foreign exchange and gold. The Transnational issues category has a new Refugees and internally displaced persons entry.
- Revision of some individual country maps, first introduced in the 2001 edition, is continued in this edition. Several regional maps have also been updated to reflect boundary changes and place name spelling changes.
The World Factbook 2004 printed version provides a "snapshot" of the world as of 1 January, 2004.
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[Transcriber's note: To search on a country name in this file, prefix the name with "@", e.g. "@Afghanistan". "Afghanistan" will find all occurrences; prefixing it with "@" will find the correct location.]
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