The US Central Intelligence Agency last week released the 2001 version of its annual reference book the
CIA World Factbook (last year's factbook is discussed in the
September 1, 2000 Scout Report). The data, which are current as of January 1, 2001 in most cases, cover 266 countries as well as the "world," a category that summarizes the data overall. For each country, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, the
Factbook gives information on geography, populations, economies, communications infrastructures, and armed forces. New information subcategories include currency code, HIV/AIDS, Internet users, and Internet Country Code. In addition to accessing information via country, users can browse by field and category, which is an easy way to compare statistics across countries. Note that individual country maps are being revised and that the Background category has not been completed for all countries.
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