New Edition of the CIA World Factbook

The CIA announced last month (press release here) that the 2005 CIA World Factbook is now available. The Factbook can be reached at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html .

In addition to the usual updates to the actual information, the Factbook has added features. As you know if you've used the Factbook before, it has a variety of information about each entity listed, broken up under several subheads. Under the People subhead, a "major infectious diseases" field has been added for countries which are considered to have a higher degree of risk for travelers. The entry for Benin, for example, lists waterborne and vectorborne diseases of which travelers should be aware as well as respiratory disease.

There are other new entries as well. The Economy subhead has fields for Current Account Balance, Investment, Public Debt, and Reserves of Foreign Exchange and Gold. I did not see all these fields in Benin's entry. Finally the Transnational Subhead has a Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons field if appropriate.

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