RIP World Factbook

One of CIA's oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset.  The World Factbook served the Intelligence Community and the general public as a longstanding, one-stop basic reference about countries and communities around the globe.  Let's take a quick look into the history of The World Factbook.  

Over many decades, The World Factbook evolved from a classified to unclassified, hardcopy to electronic product that added new categories, and even new global entities.  The original classified publication, titled The National Basic Intelligence Factbook, launched in 1962.  The first unclassified companion version was issued in 1971.  A decade later it was renamed The World Factbook.  In 1997, The World Factbook went digital and debuted to a worldwide audience on CIA.gov, where it garnered millions of views each year.

-- Article at cia.gov announcing, but not explaining, the abrupt termination of the CIA World Factbook (4 February 2026); I'll miss it