When was the cia world factbook created

Indian Ocean. Pacific Ocean. Southern Ocean. Every flag has a story. Love data? The World Factbook has over 65 rank order pages that compare country data in specific fields. Curious about other cultures? Want to use your knowledge to help keep America safe? Make a career out of learning about the world.

Skip to main content Go to CIA. The World Factbook The World Factbook provides basic intelligence on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, environment, communications, transportation, military, terrorism, and transnational issues for world entities. Explore Countries Search over locations across the globe. Try Argentina, Ghana, or Vietnam. Search Icon. World Travel Facts.

The Factbook has its origins in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the realization by Congress and the White House that lack of coordinated intelligence across all Governmental departments had left the United States woefully unprepared for the attack, and determined to correct this as a national security necessity and priority.

According to the CIA historians :. During World War II, intelligence consumers realized that the production of basic intelligence by different components of the US Government resulted in a great duplication of effort and conflicting information. Detailed and coordinated information was needed not only on such major powers as Germany and Japan, but also on places of little previous interest. In the Pacific Theater, for example, the Navy and Marines had to launch amphibious operations against many islands about which information was unconfirmed or nonexistent.

Source: Top Secret Writers. To correct this deficiency, in , General George B. Strong G-2 , Admiral H. JANIS was the first cross-departmental basic intelligence program to fulfill the needs of the US Government for an authoritative and coordinated appraisal of strategic basic intelligence. All groups involved in the war agreed that finished basic intelligence was required that covered territories around the world where the war was being fought.

They needed detailed, up-to-date maps and geography; basic understanding of the cultural, economical, political and historical issues of the people and the region. Compiling and publishing this information for the Allied intelligence needs, JANIS became an indispensable reference for war planning and execution. But the Cold War that immediately followed World War II showed that there was just as much need for continued intelligence gathering as ever.

There will always be a continuing requirement for keeping the Survey up-to-date. Originally published only as a classified publication starting a half century ago in August just prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis of October , the World Factbook was first published in its declassified version for public consumption in June , 40 years ago. Source: Canadian History Portal.

It uses only recognized, authoritative sources, not only CIA-gathered intelligence, but also a wide variety of U. It provides unparalleled and succinct information about hundreds of countries in a format that provides an easy-to-use comparison. The Factbook has been available from GPO since The version just published provides a two- to three-page summary of the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for world entities, including U.

Each country has its own basic map and shows its flag, but of particular interest are the maps of the major world regions, as well three pull-out maps included in the publication: Physical Map of the World, Political Map of the World, and Standard Time Zones of the World Map, all of which can be used as wall maps. A perennial best seller in the GPO bookstore, The World Factbook is used by not only US Government officials, but is a must-have reference for researchers, news organizations, businesses, geographers, international travelers, teachers, professors, librarians, and students.

Photographer: Andrew Teebay. Source: Liverpool Echo. To gather your own up-to-date intelligence about the world we live in, you can obtain the World Factbook at one of these locations:. The three types of finished intelligence are: basic, current, and estimative. Basic intelligence provides the fundamental and factual reference material on a country or issue. Army , U. Marines , U. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.

Like Like. You made blogging look easy. The overall look of your site is fantastic, as well as the content! That is a really good tip particularly to those fresh to the blogosphere.

Simple but very precise info… Thank you for sharing this one. A must read article! Hello, its good to be here. Really love to write on economic topics and I am controller in Beauly.

I personally love reading blogs similar to this seeing that there are common interests. Will likely be back again soon. Great post however , I was wanting to know if you could write a litte more on this subject? Are these documents available to the public? My grandfather served in Korea, I spent some time there as well, and would love to have a look at something like this.

The Office of the Historian can be reached via email at history state. Im very interested in II world war history, but to be honest, there are not many sources where you can read about CIA in those times. There are many sources where you can find stories about russian agents which were very active at that time, but not CIA.

Can i buy this book via Amazon? Thanks for the compliment and the question. This book is normally available at Amazon search for ISBN , but after checking their site just now, it seems to be out of stock on their site. However, it is in stock on our U. Government Bookstore at the same price, except our price includes Free Standard Shipping worldwide. You can find the The World Factbook here. If you are interested in the Cold War and Soviet-American relations, you might want to check these books:.

Another great blog and thanks for sharing great information, would be especially useful if one was traveling out of the country, get more reliable information than by the news media.. Thank you for thinking of me! This is a great resource for learning some key facts about every country. I did translation when I was in Spain, both for high-end retailers and movie studios. It was a lot harder than I would have thought, but I found that specialized vocabulary knowledge medical, legal, technology, business was much more in demand.

Today, there are online sites for freelancers to take translation jobs as well. I wish you great luck in your future! I really enjoyed this posting and would love to see more like it regarding the history of individual government publications.

Michele, you need to go on a Librarian speaking tour. Your headings will get you noticed anywhere, and reading your posts will seal the deal. Thanks for the kudos, Jeff. All the practice having pun battles with my family as a kid come in handy, eh? You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account.

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