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What's the World Factbook?
The World Factbook [1][2] published by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
offers free country profiles in the public domain (that is, no copyright(s), no rights reserved).
offers free country profiles in the public domain (that is, no copyright(s), no rights reserved, no license).
- [1] [The World Factbook](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/)
- [2] [Wikipedia Article: The World Factbook](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook)
**Note: All country profiles use the original / official two-letter GEC (formerly FIPS) codes and NOT the ISO codes (you
might be used to) e.g. `au.json` for Austria (and NOT `at.json`), `gm.json` for Germany (and NOT `de.json`), and so on.**
## Background
For a little background on this factbook project from the humble author,
see the all-in-one page talk slides / notes titled [Turn the World Factbook into Open (Structured) Data](https://github.com/geraldb/talks/blob/master/factbook.md).
Find some more notes on [query examples (and import instructions) for MongoDB](MONGO.md)
from another talk. Happy exploring the world with JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) datasets / documents.
## Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Qs) & Answers
### Q: Why not just use the ISO country codes? Not a bug, a feature request.
A: The factbook has many more entities / countries than ISO and sometimes with a different definition -
it's NOT an easy 1:1 mapping, see [Appendix D - Cross-Reference List of Country Data Codes](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/appendix/appendix-d.html).
### Q: I noticed that you've got Zambian data under ZA for the African region... It should be South African data...
A: See why not ISO codes - Uhhh... nevermind, I see it's stored under SF. Weird, but, ok :)
### Q: Can you update the datasets?
A: Since November 2020 the datasets get auto-updated using / fetching the original
online CIA World Factbook country profile web pages twice a month, that is,
every 1st and 15th of every month. See the [GitHub Actions log](https://github.com/factbook/factbook/actions) for details.
> Note: All country profiles use the "official" two-letter GEC (formerly FIPS) codes and NOT the ISO codes (you
> might be used to) e.g. `au` for Austria (and not `at`), `gm` for Germany (and not `de`), and so on.
## Examples
@ -63,7 +91,7 @@ Europe/Austria - `au.json`:
some snow in lowlands and snow in mountains;
moderate summers with occasional showers"
},
"Elevation extremes": {
"Elevation": {
"lowest point": {
"text": "Neusiedler See 115 m"
},
@ -76,6 +104,7 @@ Europe/Austria - `au.json`:
magnesite, tungsten, graphite, salt, hydropower"
},
...
}
```
@ -414,12 +443,20 @@ United States (14):
`xx` World
## Build Your Own Up-to-Date Country Profiles
See the [`factbook`](https://github.com/factbook/factbook)
command line tool and scripts for details.
## Real-World Usage
## License
![](https://publicdomainworks.github.io/buttons/zero88x31.png)