Known to several generations of students as a potentially valuable source of basic information about the various nations of the world, the CIA's World Factbook has been published every year since 1962. Since 1971, the Factbook has been available to the general public, and in recent years, the CIA has made new editions of the work accessible via the Internet. From the homepage, visitors can select various countries of the world and learn some basic facts about each country's history, their geography, their demographics, and their government. As might be expected, the site also contains a gallery of the flags of the world's nations, a number of helpful reference maps, and a history of the World Factbook itself. Finally, visitors can also elect to download the entire World Factbook, if they so desire.