8 ms·
Spotlighting the World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell
- LowLevelKernel 8mo agoDoes your local library still have any? I checked in a couple of libraries in CA and NV, and, I did find old ones
- helle253 8mo agowhy in the world is this being sunset i wonder
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- themafia 8mo agoThe internet now exists and easily surpasses the value of this static publication.
- varun_ch 8mo agoThe World Factbook was a really useful resource on the internet.
- MattGaiser 8mo agoThis is an odd thing to say for something heavily used on the internet. It was not just a physical book.
- themafia 8mo ago> It was not just a physical book. It was. You were able to access a copy on the internet. It was neither edited nor published there. As such it simply couldn't compete with resources that are.
- simonw 8mo agoIncorrect. The website was updated weekly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook#Frequency_of_updates_and_availability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook#Frequency_o...
- psyklic 8mo agoWhat is this then: https://web.archive.org/web/20260203163430/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260203163430/https://www.cia.g... It clearly states on the page that the Factbook was continuously updated, with "new data uploaded this week".
- tombert 8mo agoHas it though? Isn't one of the concerns of information on the internet (regardless of political affiliation) that a lot of it is total bullshit? I've seen so many responses from AI and AI "Summaries" that source claims from 20 year old unsourced forum posts. For that matter, people just make shit up, all the time, often for no apparent reason. It's upsetting that it took me until my 30's to realize that, but regardless I think there is value in canonical, well-funded sources, even with the internet.
- thaumasiotes 8mo agoThe existence of secondary sources doesn't reduce the need for primary sources. Before something can be published everywhere, it has to be published somewhere.
- throwawayq3423 8mo agoNot if everything is made up on the spot for clicks and views, which is where we're heading.
- themafia 8mo agoThe CIA was a secondary source. This bulk of this material is all drawn from other publications. Which you can now access in ways you could not before.
- anigbrowl 8mo agoWe get it, you can't see any utility in having this information aggregated anywhere in a consistent format.
- arrowsmith 8mo agoThe CIA World Factbook is a tertiary source.
- hulitu 8mo agoBut treated by Wikipedia as _the_ primary source. /s
- red-iron-pine 8mo agoit is an official release put out by an organ of the US government responsible for creating intelligence. presumably their facts are undergoing vetting and validation.
- thaumasiotes 8mo ago
- mavhc 8mo agoFacts are not a thing the government is interested in now
- rbanffy 8mo agoNor is soft power. The factbook was much more a tool for propaganda than anything else. While you could trust most of the numbers, you shouldn’t expect it to be fair about any socialist or communist countries, usually classified as brutal dictatorships, while it would always be exceedingly kind to countries with US sponsored dictators.
- pxc 8mo agoYep. This seems somewhat similar in motivation to the cuts to USAID.
- shevy-java 8mo agoWhile that is true, the current government makes heavy use of propaganda too.
- rbanffy 8mo agoTrue, but they have abandoned the subtlety of the factbook.
- edsu 8mo agoThe suggestion that obvious propaganda is somehow better than "subtle" propaganda is itself propaganda.
- rbanffy 8mo agoObvious propaganda plays a role in the destruction of a shared objective reality, which is part of the authoritarian playbook. Subtle propaganda distorts reality but preserves the notion of a shared objective one and does not intend to undermine trust. When a government uses blatant, easily disproven lies, but doubles down on the lies and continues with increasingly absurd ones, there is no space for subtlety or trustworthy sources in that government.
- sixdimensional 8mo agoI concur. Also, it was paid for by US taxpayer dollars - the entire content should have been released somewhere for free, maybe even someone would have started up a new project to maintain it, for example, something under Wikimedia or some other nonprofit. This wholesale elimination of valuable information and data owned by the public is so incredibly sad and damaging to our future. Maybe we need a FOIA request to get the entire contents released to the public.
- rbanffy 8mo ago> Maybe we need a FOIA request to get the entire contents released to the public. That’s a sound idea.
- toomuchtodo 8mo agohttps://www.muckrock.com/ https://www.muckrock.com/
- simonw 8mo agoIf enough people FOIA them maybe they'll decide it's cheaper to just put the archived website back up!
- rbanffy 8mo agoMaybe the next president will do that. I don't think this one will.
- oxfeed65261 8mo agoIt seems to be archived on the wayback machine, for example https://web.archive.org/web/20260203163430/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260203163430/https://www.cia.g... It was available for online browsing or as a downloadable file, I think a zip compressed PDF. I’m sure copies are available, but it would be nice to have an authoritative source.
- 8mo ago
- hn_acc1 8mo agoTo avoid pesky facts getting in the way of them attempting to re-write history, like in 1984 (the book).
- hulitu 8mo agoSocial media is much more suited to spread propaganda.
- joezydeco 8mo agoMetafilter has a theory: "Apparently the judge in the Haitian TPS case cited the Factbook in her injunction ruling. There's quite a bit of speculation that that's why it's gone now."
- themafia 8mo agoI don't know that the Schlesinger memo was real but I think it's conclusions were perfect. The CIA needs to be split into two divisions. The research division and the operations division.
- callmeal 8mo agoThey should all just go home. They already won. Remember this quote? "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William J. Casey, CIA Director (1981)
- csours 8mo agoThere Is No Disinformation Department.
- cyberge99 8mo agoI see what you did there.
- shevy-java 8mo agoEveryone should read 1984! It is such a time-less classic.
- shevy-java 8mo agoWell - the easier take-away is that the general public can not trust any of those top organisations. I think when a citizen can not trust the government anymore (in any country, at the least in a democracy), this is worrying. It's then more like the novel 1984 - while that referred primarily to the Soviet Union (Big Brother referred to Stalin for the most part), one could also find so many correlations to a "strong man"-led democracy too.
- throwawayq3423 8mo ago> This quote, often phrased as "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false," is widely attributed to William J. Casey, who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (CIA) under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987. > While frequently cited in literature and discussions about propaganda and media manipulation, the quote's authenticity is highly disputed and unverified. Are you trying to be ironic?
- sparrish 8mo agoI remember doing research in the print version of the World Factbook back in college days. It was the most accurate and up-to-date info we could get on countries before the Interwebs. RIP.
- theturtle 8mo ago[dead]
- simonklitj 8mo agoAh, was just finishing a geography quiz game with this as one of the fact sources. Oh well!
- kayo_20211030 8mo agoWaaaht? And, why? Budgets? This is/was a wonderful resource. I'll be sad to see the back of it.
- shevy-java 8mo agoThe why is a good question. I don't think it is the budget; to me it seems more as if Wikipedia kind of phased it out.
- pseudalopex 8mo agoWikipedia used it. And it had much information not in Wikipedia. And it was concise. And its structure was consistent.
- Noaidi 8mo agoYes, budgets. They need to cancel this maybe $100K website to fund the $500 Trillion defense budget increase. It will be replaced by the new CIA factbook which will tell us it is the destiny for the white race to rule the world.
- simonw 8mo agoUrgh, this is nasty: curl -i 'https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook' HTTP/2 302 content-length: 0 location: https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/spotlighting-the-world-factbook-as-we-bid-a-fond-farewell/ They didn't even have the decency to give it a 410 or 404 error. Same for all of the country pages - they redirect back to the same story: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/morocco/ https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/morocco/ The thing was released into the public domain! No reason at all to take it down - they could have left the last published version up with a giant banner at the top saying it's no longer maintained.
- CamperBob2 8mo ago[flagged]
- shevy-java 8mo agoHmmm. They do not mention Wikipedia, but the CIA book kind of had information about countries for a very long time. I get that Wikipedia would objectively make more sense; so while it may make sense to stop investing resources into the CIA book, I still think it would be better to keep tabs on the content of Wikipedia. Kind of like a secondary quality control. It may not be hugely important here, but if 100.000 other websites vanish, I still think it may be an indirect problem for Wikipedia, as all its presented facts may become increasingly more and more circular to itself - which is made worse by AI slop spamming down the global quality.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- transcriptase 8mo agoAs it stands you only need a few friends or likeminded journalists at a few major publications to repeat the same falsehood, and it becomes a properly cited fact on Wikipedia and in the public eye for as long as you need it to be. If it’s later proven to be a falsehood and the underlying sources quietly issue retractions it doesn’t matter. How many people out there still believe the Hunter Biden laptop story, and all the politically damaging material on it was Russian misinformation?
- pjc50 8mo agoGiven how all that vanished once Trump won, the propaganda having served its purpose, it seems my decision to write it off as chaff was vindicated. Remember "lock her up?" Remember how that vanished as well and there was not, in fact, any effort to lock her up? (the problem of submarining stuff into Wikipedia is real though, and a by-product of it being the most trusted reference)
- transcriptase 8mo agoHow what vanished? The concerted effort to censor it on social media and dismiss it everywhere else as a hoax? 51 individuals in the “intelligence community” put their names to a letter saying it was Russian disinformation, which was used as evidence that it should be suppressed. If you don’t realize now that you were lied to even though it’s trivial to confirm now that all the institutions that lied to you have since quietly issued retractions, corrections, or since wrote that they were misled… Russia had 0 involvement. The laptop and all the controversial material and evidence of corruption on it were legitimate. Wanting to believe otherwise is doing yourself a disservice, even if it means conceding that those you disagree with aren’t always lying.
- throwawayq3423 8mo agoAt least they let the people behind it give a farewell message. Most cuts to government are abrupt and unceremonious.
- drecked 8mo ago> Finally, only CIA insiders would know that officers donated some of their personal travel photos to The World Factbook, which hosted more than 5,000 photographs that were copyright-free for anyone to access and use. Isn’t this sufficient to keep it around, even if the facts themselves may be available on Wikipedia?
- sandworm101 8mo agoFacts are, today, a threat. An encyclopedia of facts about various countries, published by a respected US agency, is dangerous. What if public policy changes? What if it is announced that there are millions of jewish people living in Iran? A CIA website claiming that there are in fact far fewer than millions would fly in the face of declared national policy. We cannot have a list of official "facts", not when new facts are being announced almost daily. How could one ever justify invading greenland to save all those penguins when the CIA's own website states that the penguin popultion of greenland increased by 27% in the last five years?
- jfengel 8mo agoI suspect that may literally be true. 127% of 0 is 0. You were by accident more factual than the administration can be deliberately.
- CGamesPlay 8mo agoYou say this, but the opposite is equally true. Why should I trust the CIA's website when it says that there are no penguins in Greenland, and so there's no ecological harm to strip mining the place?
- mikeyouse 8mo agoWell I would hope that's what the Factbook would say since penguins exclusively live in the Southern Hemisphere.
- dwd 8mo ago"The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia."
- josephscott 8mo agoThank you Internet Archive - https://web.archive.org/web/20260103000011/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260103000011/https://www.cia.g...
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- edsu 8mo agoIt works remarkably well there too. Thanks CIA for making a website that is (was) easy to archive.
- jl6 8mo agoWhat is now a good source of aggregated population statistics?
- 0xDEAFBEAD 8mo agoMaybe Our World in Data? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population?tab=map https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population?tab=map
- lambertsimnel 8mo agoThere's also World Bank population data (but it seems only to go up to 2016): https://databank.worldbank.org/source/subnational-population/Type/TABLE/preview/on https://databank.worldbank.org/source/subnational-population...
- FeistySkink 8mo agoHuh. I had a native Android app way back when on the Play Store, that presented the Factbook in the mobile-friendly manner. Was quite popular in Africa of all places. But ultimately had to first delist it and then close the account altogether, once Google started requiring more and more unnecessary SDK updates, and ultimately identity verification. What a trip down the memory lane.
- itsrobreally 8mo agoThis isn't ideal but the book is still in print: https://www.amazon.com/CIA-World-Factbook-2025-2026/dp/1510782087/ https://www.amazon.com/CIA-World-Factbook-2025-2026/dp/15107... I couldn't find a PDF or archive of the site online (other than the obvious archive.org) but I didn't look very hard.
- toomuchtodo 8mo agoThanks, picked up copies for the Internet Archive's OpenLibrary and to have a copy scanned for a public PDF.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- saguntum 8mo agoThanks. Is this one officially not getting released? https://www.amazon.com/dp/151078604X/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/151078604X/ I was thinking it would be nice to have a final print edition for the book collection, Amazon seems to be under the impression that this newer version is coming out in April.
- B1FF_PSUVM 8mo agoBack in the peak-paper days - when the Sunday newspaper was for the man "smart enough to read it and strong enough to carry it", and the Computer Shopper magazine vied with phone directories for thickness - you could go into a gas station and pick up a paperback copy of the CIA World Factbook, usually from a shelf also sporting the Rand McNally road maps. Tears in rain, sic transit, etc.
- simonw 8mo agoI managed to pull a zip file archive of the 2020 edition from the Internet Archive - I've uploaded the contents of that zip file to this GitHub repo: https://github.com/simonw/cia-world-factbook-2020 https://github.com/simonw/cia-world-factbook-2020 And turned on GitHub Pages so you can browse it here: https://simonw.github.io/cia-world-factbook-2020/ https://simonw.github.io/cia-world-factbook-2020/
- s0rce 8mo agoLooks more like 1995
- lambertsimnel 8mo agoThe Anguilla summary has 2020 population data, but some of the data is indeed much older: https://simonw.github.io/cia-world-factbook-2020/attachments/summaries/AV-summary.pdf https://simonw.github.io/cia-world-factbook-2020/attachments...
- s0rce 8mo agoI meant the website looks like 1995
- Wowfunhappy 8mo agoThe Github Pages website seems to be missing a lot of images? For example, if I go to https://simonw.github.io/cia-world-factbook-2020/geos/fr.html https://simonw.github.io/cia-world-factbook-2020/geos/fr.htm... and then click "View 95 photos of FRANCE".
- simonw 8mo agoYes, those were not included in the zip file.
- lambertsimnel 8mo agoMaybe some can be found in the Wayback Machine. This page says "view 71 photos" under "photos of France": https://web.archive.org/web/20260103000011/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/france/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260103000011/https://www.cia.g... Clicking the link seems to show 114 photos: https://web.archive.org/web/20260103000011/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/france/images/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260103000011/https://www.cia.g... I didn't see a way to get high-resolution versions. Edit: This photo from Afghanistan is called "AF_006_large.jpg", but it's only 600x450: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/static/e926b79682b14cdf53638e3e48c23bbb/AF_006_large.jpg https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/static/e926b79682b14c...
- toomuchtodo 8mo agoPotentially related: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/wyden_letter_to_d-ciapdf.pdf https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/wyden_letter_to_d...
- DaveZale 8mo agothey swapped out the "t" for an "e" /s
- crazygringo 8mo agoIt made sense in an age of print. But in the era of Wikipedia it's not really needed anymore. If you want population statistics or whatever, Wikipedia will tell you and link to the country's own official metrics. You don't need the CIA to collate it all for you. And, as multiple commenters here have noted, it's on the Internet Archive. So let's just cherish it as another print tradition that would inevitably end.
- simonw 8mo agoIt hasn't been a print-first publication in many years - the site was updated weekly. It's also where a lot of the facts on Wikipedia came from. This is a real loss. I trust CIA over official population numbers from a lot of countries. There was a thread on here recently that pointed out a lot of countries haven't conducted an effective census in many years, if at all: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46810027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46810027
- stopbulying 8mo agoHopefully the next admin will regain an understanding of the value of the World Facebook collection of somewhat-vetted facts and opinions.
- shmeeed 8mo agoPlease no World Facebook
- stopbulying 8mo agoWhat if they call theirs Truthbook Bader Ginsberg? Like RBGPAC
- stopbulying 8mo ago(Truth Social went out of their way to copy the look of Twitter by styling their Mastodon instance with the Soapbox theme.) (Elon Musk was the only contributor to a PAC that claimed to represent a deceased Supreme Court Justice.)
- kittikitti 8mo agoWhy would anyone trust this? Even as a small child, I found their "Factbook" to be highly dubious. I bet MAGA hated the pages on Greenland, Venezuela, and Israel; even when presented with distorted facts. I'll give the CIA credit for taking it down before MIGA forced them to publish obvious propaganda. That's something Mossad is better suited for. These intelligence agencies have lost all of their reputation and credibility.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- lxgr 8mo agoThis brings back memories: The Factbook was one of my favorite “ebooks” on Palm OS (especially before SD card support arrived and made carrying full Wikipedia dumps feasible). Growing up, I was always impressed by the US’s commitment to putting excellent taxpayer-funded works like this into the public domain.
- SpaceL10n 8mo agoAn intelligent person would have given us a reason or some reassurance as to why losing "One of CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications" is not something to worry about. Unless, said intelligent person is giving us warning. Tinfoil hat firmly glued on.
- Gollapalli 8mo agoThis is such a loss
- personjerry 8mo ago> ... has sunset No accountability in the language No rationale No fucks given What was the point of this post?
- socalgal2 8mo agoI'm going to take the downvotes but at what point should something like this be taken down? Some of you might say "never" but come on, the thing was started in 1962. If you wanted info on anything back then you had to go to the library and cross your fingers they had a book for whatever you wanted to know. That world is long gone. Today we have Wikipedia, Our World in Data, and every government in the world has web pages from every agency. I loved the World Factbook. I can also see that it's out lived its purpose.
- handstitched 8mo agoLook at the wikipedia page for any given country, and I guarantee you that it cites the CIA World Factbook at least once (and probably several times [1] ). Saying "we don't need the world factbook because we have Wikipedia" is completely ridiculous. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, meaning it's not a primary source of facts but rather an aggregate of information published elsewhere. [1] - some examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia - cites the factbook 4 times; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbekistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbekistan - cites it twice
- socalgal2 8mo agoirrelevant. thy cite the CIA fact book because it expect, not because its the only source. they’ll just start citing something else like the country’s official stats, or the UN, or something else
- LowLevelKernel 8mo agoDoes this mean the CIA is also going to pull all the archives too?