The World Factbook (also known as the CIA World Factbook) 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 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 is frequently used as a resource for academic research papers. As a work of the U.S. government, it is in the public domain in the United States.

What’s New
– 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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Country Listing
[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.]
World
A
Afghanistan Akrotiri Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and
Barbuda Arctic Ocean Argentina Armenia Aruba Ashmore and Cartier Islands Atlantic Ocean Australia
Austria Azerbaijan