Finding information about all the countries of world at one place that too without investing money is really a pleasant experience. For those who want to keep this as a reference book, it is available on the net and if you want to read it using e-reader or other device, different versions are available. The book may prove useful for students, teachers, coaching institutes as it is full of information, be it the political, geographical, demographical or about resources.

The book is full of amazing facts:

Do you know that:

Size of vetican city (listed as Holy See in the World Factbook) is as small as a Mall in a city of United States, in fact smaller than it i.e. 0.7 times of a Mall size.

• China and Russia, each border 14 other countries;

• 44 nations and other areas are landlocked;

• 98 nations and other entities are islands that border no other countries;

• the greatest ocean depth is the Mariana Trench at 10,924 m in the Pacific Ocean;

• lowest point: Bentley Subglacial Trench -2,540 m

note: in the oceanic realm, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the lowest point, lying -10,924 m below the surface of the Pacific Ocean

highest point: Mount Everest 8,850 m

• Languages spoken: Mandarin Chinese 13.69%, Spanish 5.05%, English 4.84%, Hindi 2.82%, Portuguese 2.77%, Bengali 2.68%, Russian 2.27%, Japanese 1.99%, Standard German 1.49%, Wu Chinese 1.21% (2004 est.)

•Religions: Christians 33.03% (of which Roman Catholics 17.33%, Protestants 5.8%, Orthodox 3.42%, Anglicans 1.23%), Muslims 20.12%, Hindus 13.34%, Buddhists 5.89%, Sikhs 0.39%, Jews 0.23%, other religions 12.61%, non-religious 12.03%, atheists 2.36% (2004 est.)

These are just few facts cited from CIA's World Factbook to give a insight to readers.

Several interesting facts about different countries of the worls are there in the World factbook.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) publishes The World Factbook in printed and Internet versions. It is available freely for download in zipped format (37 MB size). This is a good resource of knowledge for people engaged in research and development work. Also information contained in the book may be extremely useful for aspirants of competitive examinations. Even if you do not belong to any of the above category it could be of great interest if you have interest in acquiring information about political, economical or any other aspect of any country of the world. Information is updated at regular interval by the agency. Information provided under the head “background” for all countries and the world is very interesting and one get acquainted with the past events a country witnessed. Geographical information includes maps of the countries, area, land boundaries, coastline, maritime claims, climate terrain, elevation extremes, natural resources, land use, irrigated land, natural hazards, and relevant environmental issues.

Information on people provides details about population, death rate, sex ratio, infant mortality rate, life expectancy at birth, total fertility rate, prevalence of HIV/AIDS, different religions, languages spoken and literacy status. Governance systems, economy, and other issues are dealt at length in the world fact book.

Although purpose of this publication is official, its availability in public domain makes it an important resource for everyone and in my opinion it’s a must have reference book for all interested in political, economical and strategic issues. I congratulate CIA for this great compilation.