The CIA World Factbook 2008

By Central Intelligence Agency

Book Overview

The World Factbook , produced annually by the CIA, has become the ultimate, authoritative source of information on all the nations of the world. It provides current data for more than 250 countries... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1602390800
• ISBN13: 9781602390805
• Release Date: December 2007
• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
• Length: 801 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 7.1" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

Amazing

I love to learn about other countries, and this is a great way to have a handy resource. The data is somewhat outdated for some countries because they do not report it, but I have found it fascinating nonetheless. I use the book for reference and even started reading up on some places I want to go. I would recommend this for anyone who loves to learn about other countries statistics. If you are looking for culture, this gives a statistical overview (resources, land mass, some history, demographics) but not a human overview. For that, I wouldn't recommend this book. For just facts and information, I would 100% recommend this book!

Kindle Edition review & workaround

The Kindle edition has two problems: 1) The text justification is Centered and can't be altered to full or left justification. This makes for rather annoying reading regardless of what type size you choose. 2) In the Table of Countries, the quickest way to get to the right entry should be to click on the appropriate letter of the alphabet in the alphabet letter list at the top of the Table of Contents. On the Kindle, you get the alphabet in two lines, A-W and X-Z. However, the Kindle handles this kind of links with a pop up "menu" and that only will display links for the letters A through M when you click on the link A-W. So unless you either use the Search on Kindle or page down through the table of contents, you can't get to a N-W country rapidly. A work around: Go through the text for the N-W countries and use the Kindle Highlight to highlight each letter of the alphabet (at the head of that letter's list of countries. I actually did the whole alphabet this way). Then instead of using the table of contents, use the Menu feature for your Marks. Also note that Taiwan is listed at the very end of the regular alphabet list.

A Good Reference Book

Certainly not the most comprehensive handbook, but definitely a serious and solid reference book. The book was less biased than what I expected. It does offer a clear insight on countries we just get no information via common media. This fact book delivers lots of information, spanning from a short history and the political situation, to the lots of interesting facts and figures on people and geography. A very interesting book overall.

facts galore

This is by far the finest comprehensive and simple to read gathering of world facts that we could fine - it is updated yearly. I have some questions about validity but have to leave it to the CIA to collect the data. Bought for 12 year old's social studies class. Even he thinks its interesting - especially the paved and unpaved airports data. Will buy next years edition. In the back of my brain all I can see is my tax dollars being spent on sending CIA Agents all over the world to determine if the climate is humid or dry. Somebody's got to do it. All in all we use the book regularly and highly recommend it for someone who needs it for school work, crossword puzzles or just to annoy their family with facts.

A must have!

The world is too small not to have access to reliable information on the rest of the world. This is the place to get it.