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▲ CIA World Facebook Is Dead – Here Is an Attempt at Recreation(worldfacts.app)
36 points by yegortk 3 hours ago | 32 comments
▲jakzurr 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

According to the wikipedia article,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook

this is the new open source site:

https://openfactbook.org/

▲xnx an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Title does not match page and title says "Facebook" instead of "Factbook".

▲walrus01 28 minutes ago | parent [-]

CIA World Freudian Slip

▲nomilk an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For those who aren't aware, the CIA World Factbook was a bit like a modern day atlas with many well sourced headline statistics about each and every country. Things like it's political structure, religion, economy, population, history etc.

I missed it recently when wanting to compare government revenue and expenditure for several countries. Without it, I didn't bother as I'd have to look figures up manually through each respective country's own budget website, and ensure figures were like-for-like (which they rarely are), and doing this for each country with its own conventions is incredibly tedious. Therein lies the value of Factbook; all the miserable distillation was done for us.

The rationale for defunding was 'why should the US tax-payer fund something that's equally valuable for everyone in the world'. I think that's fair. But I lament its removal and wish the US could rattle the tin so other countries chip in and bring it back.

▲somat 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I always figured the answer was that the information was for the US Taxpayer, and if other countries would like to use it. well, it is not for them, but if they can get access, fine, The effort required to try and keep them out is not worth it.

Sort of the same reason US government works ends up in the public domain "This work was funded by the US citizens and as such it is owned by the US citizens(in the public domain), it is too much hassle to try and prevent non-US citizens access so if they can get a copy they are free to use it as well"

▲walrus01 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I never found it particularly useful but the CIA World Factbook seemed to have originated with some of the "country orientation guides" that the US DoD used to prepare in printed form for military service members being posted to weird locations. There's historical "Welcome to South Korea!" type documents that make an attempt to orient "never traveled outside of the USA before" type Americans to cultural and regionally specific things in Japan, South Korea, Germany, etc. The CIA World Factbook was just a more structured encylopedia like version of the same.

edit: There was absolutely nothing "CIA" specific or sensitive about it whatsoever, it was basically like if you paid some government employees to attempt a job similar to the mid 1980s era Encylopedia Britannica. Maybe with a bit more emphasis on public statistics like literacy rate, percent of houses with telephones, economic statistics, other basic public stats that governments are known to publish.

▲mindcrime 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"CIA World Facebook"--> Is that a code name for PRISM or ECHELON or whatever??

▲klodolph 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It was a literal factbook online. In high school, I remember using it to look up facts like the area or population of different countries.

▲cwnyth an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The title of this submission says "Facebook", not "Factbook". That's what they were referring to.

▲lostlogin an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I feel a bit twitchy remembering the pain of trying to do the references right for websites back then.

▲MrDrMcCoy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No, it was a guidebook anyone could use for just about every country. It well predates PRISM, and was well regarded until it was discontinued.

▲lmz 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That was the factbook

▲marcelo-earth an hour ago | parent [-]

I had to read it twice times. It has always been cited on Wikipedia for as long as I can remember.

▲nomilk an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a typo in the HN title which should be corrected. Should be World Factbook; nothing to do with Facebook.

▲tty456 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I thought it was a site exposing CIA undercover agents

▲ButlerianJihad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Freudian Slip. Everyone knows that Facebook is Five Eyes Book/Mossadbook

▲silverFork an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Freedom In the world stat and couple of others - boundaries and value don't match; says 1-7 1 is the best but listed value is between 1 and 100

▲newman314 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Request for higher contrast please for my old eyes.

▲decafbad an hour ago | parent [-]

Pale-grey on white. There are many websites like this. Why on earth?

darkreader.org helps.

▲PostOnce 11 minutes ago | parent [-]

This is because Claude made them, and Claude doesn't have eyeballs.

Low effort looks like low effort, even if you have an AI helping.

▲MrDrMcCoy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Feature request: include the source and date last updated for all information fields.

▲erikig 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thank you for including data sources as well as some basic data analysis. The scatter plots are quite helpful in analyzing some demographic assumptions that often arise when discussing economic and social development.

You’ve earned yourself a bookmark :)

▲oofbey 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What happened to the CIA world factbook? It was great.

▲serf 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"On February 4, 2026, following the restriction and closure since 2025 of other government-funded information websites, the CIA announced, with no warning and no explanation, that The World Factbook was discontinued."[0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook

▲JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-]

Do we have a credible source tying this to DOGE?

▲tejtm 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It got spellchecked into the boards

Maybe @dang can fix the autocorecto

▲walrus01 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You know what else they killed? The SIGAR.mil website (special inspector general for afghan reconstruction), the congressionally chartered oversight/audit entity that had a very well laid out website with chronological ordered list of every document that the SIGAR had ever produced. But no, let's sweep it under the rug.

All of its PDF are still out there in the public domain, just scattered and not well organized in a single set of tabular pages. Here's its final report for an example of what it did.

https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/2145129/sigar-final-repor...

▲Keyframe an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The internet was so fucking great up until around the time facebook showed up and became overbearing. Starting with an era of 'multimedia' CD-ROMs and first wave of internet, through the second wave of internet around the dotcom era and the third era of "AJAX" it felt really open, accessible, full of everything.

I can't tell for sure what happened around 2005 or so, youtube spawned up as well and it seemed for a while it was going great and then things started dying off, getting walled-in and dying within those walls as well.. I don't know how it happened, maybe as Hemingway put it - two ways. gradually, then suddenly.

Factbook was one such place that carried memories of ye olde past.

Also, CIA FACTbook, not CIA FACEbook, although when you think about it and In-Q-Tel lol.

▲TZubiri an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

*Factbook

▲ChrisArchitect an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Another take from 8 months ago

https://worldfactbookarchive.org/

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47114530)

▲k310 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Factbook, please.

▲ulfw 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Last thing I want is another Facebook