The 2007 CIA World Factbook

"The 2007 CIA World Factbook" by United States Central Intelligence Agency is a comprehensive reference work that provides detailed information about countries and regions around the world, likely compiled in the early 21st century. This publication covers a wide array of topics including geography, demographics, government structures, economy, and environmental issues. It serves as a valuable resource for understanding the status and characteristics of various nations and territories. The opening of the Factbook outlines its structure and contents, highlighting updates made since the previous edition, particularly to the government and transnational issues categories. It introduces new fields such as time zone information for capital cities and details on human trafficking, emphasizing contemporary concerns. The text also includes a comprehensive table of contents, showcasing categories like field listings, rank orders, appendices, and notes to assist users in navigating the information provided across almost 300 listed geographic entities. (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.