The 2004 CIA World Factbook

"The 2004 CIA World Factbook" by the United States Central Intelligence Agency is a comprehensive reference publication written in the early 21st century. This resource is designed to provide detailed information about countries and regions around the world, covering various topics including geography, demographics, economy, military, and political structure. It serves as an essential guide for readers interested in understanding global affairs and country-specific data. The opening of the Factbook introduces the structured format that outlines the essential topics covered within. It provides a glimpse into updates and changes made in this edition, such as the inclusion of new entries regarding economic data and the clarification of political statuses for certain regions. This foundational portion details how the Factbook organizes essential country data, emphasizing its objective to deliver a comprehensive snapshot of global statistics and geopolitical insights at the beginning of 2004. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

The Central Intelligence Agency, known informally as the Agency, metonymously as Langley and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action through its Directorate of Operations. The agency is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.