For those who aren't aware, the CIA World Factbook was a bit like a modern day atlas with many well sourced headline statistics about each and every country. Things like it's political structure, religion, economy, population, history etc.
I missed it recently when wanting to compare government revenue and expenditure for several countries. Without it, I didn't bother as I'd have to look figures up manually through each respective countries' own budget websites, and ensure I was comparing like-for-like, which would be miserable since every country has its own conventions. Therein lies the value of Factbook; all that miserable work was done for us.
The rationale for defunding was 'why should the US tax-payer fund something that's equally valuable for everyone in the world'. I think that's fair. But I lament its removal and wish the US could rattle the tin so other countries chip in and bring it back.
I never found it particularly useful but the CIA World Factbook seemed to have originated with some of the "country orientation guides" that the US DoD used to prepare in printed form for military service members being posted to weird locations. There's historical "Welcome to South Korea!" type documents that make an attempt to orient "never traveled outside of the USA before" type Americans to cultural and regionally specific things in Japan, South Korea, Germany, etc. The CIA World Factbook was just a more structured encylopedia like version of the same.
Thank you for including data sources as well as some basic data analysis. The scatter plots are quite helpful in analyzing some demographic assumptions that often arise when discussing economic and social development.
You know what else they killed? The SIGAR.mil website (special inspector general for afghan reconstruction), the congressionally chartered oversight/audit entity that had a very well laid out website with chronological ordered list of every document that the SIGAR had ever produced. But no, let's sweep it under the rug.
All of its PDF are still out there in the public domain, just scattered and not well organized in a single set of tabular pages. Here's its final report for an example of what it did.
The internet was so fucking great up until around the time facebook showed up and became overbearing. Starting with an era of 'multimedia' CD-ROMs and first wave of internet, through the second wave of internet around the dotcom era and the third era of "AJAX" it felt really open, accessible, full of everything.
I can't tell for sure what happened around 2005 or so, youtube spawned up as well and it seemed for a while it was going great and then things started dying off, getting walled-in and dying within those walls as well.. I don't know how it happened, maybe as Hemingway put it - two ways. gradually, then suddenly.
Factbook was one such place that carried memories of ye olde past.
Also, CIA FACTbook, not CIA FACEbook, although when you think about it and In-Q-Tel lol.
"On February 4, 2026, following the restriction and closure since 2025 of other government-funded information websites, the CIA announced, with no warning and no explanation, that The World Factbook was discontinued."[0]
For those who aren't aware, the CIA World Factbook was a bit like a modern day atlas with many well sourced headline statistics about each and every country. Things like it's political structure, religion, economy, population, history etc.
I missed it recently when wanting to compare government revenue and expenditure for several countries. Without it, I didn't bother as I'd have to look figures up manually through each respective countries' own budget websites, and ensure I was comparing like-for-like, which would be miserable since every country has its own conventions. Therein lies the value of Factbook; all that miserable work was done for us.
The rationale for defunding was 'why should the US tax-payer fund something that's equally valuable for everyone in the world'. I think that's fair. But I lament its removal and wish the US could rattle the tin so other countries chip in and bring it back.
I never found it particularly useful but the CIA World Factbook seemed to have originated with some of the "country orientation guides" that the US DoD used to prepare in printed form for military service members being posted to weird locations. There's historical "Welcome to South Korea!" type documents that make an attempt to orient "never traveled outside of the USA before" type Americans to cultural and regionally specific things in Japan, South Korea, Germany, etc. The CIA World Factbook was just a more structured encylopedia like version of the same.
Title does not match page and title says "Facebook" instead of "Factbook".
"CIA World Facebook"--> Is that a code name for PRISM or ECHELON or whatever??
It was a literal factbook online. In high school, I remember using it to look up facts like the area or population of different countries.
The title of this submission says "Facebook", not "Factbook". That's what they were referring to.
I feel a bit twitchy remembering the pain of trying to do the references right for websites back then.
No, it was a guidebook anyone could use for just about every country. It well predates PRISM, and was well regarded until it was discontinued.
That was the factbook
I had to read it twice times. It has always been cited on Wikipedia for as long as I can remember.
It's a typo in the HN title which should be corrected. Should be World Factbook; nothing to do with Facebook.
I thought it was a site exposing CIA undercover agents
Freudian Slip. Everyone knows that Facebook is Five Eyes Book/Mossadbook
Freedom In the world stat and couple of others - boundaries and value don't match; says 1-7 1 is the best but listed value is between 1 and 100
Request for higher contrast please for my old eyes.
Pale-grey on white. There are many websites like this. Why on earth?
darkreader.org helps.
Feature request: include the source and date last updated for all information fields.
Thank you for including data sources as well as some basic data analysis. The scatter plots are quite helpful in analyzing some demographic assumptions that often arise when discussing economic and social development.
You’ve earned yourself a bookmark :)
You know what else they killed? The SIGAR.mil website (special inspector general for afghan reconstruction), the congressionally chartered oversight/audit entity that had a very well laid out website with chronological ordered list of every document that the SIGAR had ever produced. But no, let's sweep it under the rug.
All of its PDF are still out there in the public domain, just scattered and not well organized in a single set of tabular pages. Here's its final report for an example of what it did.
https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/2145129/sigar-final-repor...
The internet was so fucking great up until around the time facebook showed up and became overbearing. Starting with an era of 'multimedia' CD-ROMs and first wave of internet, through the second wave of internet around the dotcom era and the third era of "AJAX" it felt really open, accessible, full of everything.
I can't tell for sure what happened around 2005 or so, youtube spawned up as well and it seemed for a while it was going great and then things started dying off, getting walled-in and dying within those walls as well.. I don't know how it happened, maybe as Hemingway put it - two ways. gradually, then suddenly.
Factbook was one such place that carried memories of ye olde past.
Also, CIA FACTbook, not CIA FACEbook, although when you think about it and In-Q-Tel lol.
What happened to the CIA world factbook? It was great.
"On February 4, 2026, following the restriction and closure since 2025 of other government-funded information websites, the CIA announced, with no warning and no explanation, that The World Factbook was discontinued."[0]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook
Do we have a credible source tying this to DOGE?
It got spellchecked into the boards
Maybe @dang can fix the autocorecto
*Factbook
Another take from 8 months ago
https://worldfactbookarchive.org/
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47114530)
Factbook, please.
Last thing I want is another Facebook