You might or might not have ever realized it, however for greater than six a long time, the CIA printed an unimaginable useful resource referred to as The World Factbook. It was a free reference information to all of the international locations on Earth, together with a number of non-state entities such because the European Union, and it was full of all kinds of eye-opening information.
You may’ve observed I’m referring to it prior to now tense. That’s as a result of after having maintained this challenge since 1962—first as a printed e-book after which in more moderen years on-line—the CIA unceremoniously discontinued and deleted The World Factbook earlier this 12 months.
However, as so usually occurs, the web has come to the rescue. And now this one-of-a-kind useful resource and all of the knowledge inside it’s obtainable for anybody to faucet into once more.
This tip initially appeared within the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the subsequent difficulty in your inbox and prepare to find all kinds of superior tech treasures!
Your free world area information
On February 4, the CIA announced it was shutting down The World Factbook as soon as and for all. Each single web page was deleted concurrently.
That’s the dangerous information. The excellent news: Somebody’s already introduced it again, and it’s obtainable as soon as extra as a free on-line useful resource.
➜ The brand new model known as OpenFactBook. It’s a community-maintained successor to the unique from the CIA.
⌚ You can begin shopping it proper now, in a matter of seconds.
✅ The only means to make use of OpenFactBook is to choose a rustic and dive in. Each web page begins with a number of key statistics, a map, and a short historical past. Then, you’ll discover a plethora of unveiling statistics.
🧠 A part of the enjoyable is discovering cool or uncommon stats. For instance: The best elevation in Vatican Metropolis is the Vatican Gardens, which is 78 meters above sea stage. The bottom: Saint Peter’s Sq., at 19 meters. They use 0% of their land for agriculture.
However there’s a lot extra right here than sudden stats about microstates.
💡 One function I like is the Compare Countries tool, discovered within the high menu bar. You should use it to see a fast breakdown of a number of international locations, which is nice if you’re attempting to get a really feel for one thing just like the relative measurement, inhabitants, or way of life between totally different locations.
Mainly, this is similar knowledge the federal government lengthy supplied, solely now it’s maintained by devoted volunteers. The knowledge combines knowledge from the unique information with knowledge from the World Bank Group and a service referred to as REST Countries API.
And now it’ll all the time be obtainable for anybody to entry. All you must know is the place to seek out it.
- OpenFactBook is a good old-fashioned website—no downloads or installations required.
- It’s free, with non-compulsory donations to help the internet hosting and knowledge entry bills.
- The location has no cookies, monitoring, or private knowledge assortment of any form.
Deal with your self to all kinds of brain-boosting goodies like this with the free Cool Tools newsletter—beginning with an immediate introduction to an unimaginable audio app that’ll tune up your days in really pleasant methods.
