This article will be permanently flagged as inappropriate and made unaccessible to everyone. Are you certain this article is inappropriate? Excessive Violence Sexual Content Political / Social
Email Address:
Article Id: WHEBN0000233056 Reproduction Date:
The World Factbook (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]
In researching the Factbook, the CIA uses the sources listed below. Other public and private sources are also consulted.[4]
Because the Factbook is in the § 403m).
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.
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]
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.
As of July 2011, The World Factbook consists of 267 entities.[3] These entities can be divided into categories.[22] They are:
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 Digital, 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.”[65]
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 km2[66] while Geoscience Australia gives the area as 7,692,024 km2,[67] a difference of 9,724 km2. A Fiji government website gives the land area of the Fiji Islands as 18,333 km2[68] while the CIA Factbook gives the area as 18,274 km2,[69] a difference of 59 km2.
Various demographic information is full of usually minor errors, inaccuracies, and out-of-date information, which are often repeated elsewhere due to the Factbook's widespread use as a reference. For example, Albania is described in the CIA Factbook as 70% Muslim, 20% Eastern Orthodox, and 10% Roman Catholic, which was based on a survey conducted in 1939, before World War II; numerous surveys conducted since the fall of the Communist regime since 1990 have given quite different figures. Another example is Singapore, which the Factbook states has a total fertility rate of 0.78 children per woman, despite figures in Statistics Singapore which state that the rate has been about 1.2-1.3 children per woman for at least the past several years, and it is unclear when, or even whether, it ever dropped as low as 0.78.[70] This extremely low and inaccurate value then gets cited in news articles which state that Singapore has the world's lowest fertility, or at least use the figure for its shock value.[71]
Before 1998, the United Kingdom profile contained a sentence that asserted the UK had gained independence on 1 January 1801.[72] 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,[73] 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 no one year in which independence was achieved, since there is an arguable legitimate succession of states, systems and entities from the Norman Conquest, 1066.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the CIA World Factbook.
Costa Rica, United Nations, Colombia, Buddhism, Nicaragua
Afghanistan, Shia Islam, Persian language, Pakistan, Mongols
New Zealand, Māori people, Hamilton, New Zealand, Chatham Islands, Cook Islands
Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Podgorica, Belgrade