Attached Link: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html

From the news release, "Although this reference site provides information as of 1 January 2005, it will be updated biweekly throughout the year to provide wide-ranging and hard-to-locate information about the background, geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe...The World Factbook 2005 contains six appendices with reference information ranging from abbreviations and descriptions of international organizations and groups to cross-referenced lists of country data codes. The 2005 edition includes 15 reference maps, which are available in both JPEG and PDF formats. Many country maps and flags have been updated to reflect changes and refinements over the past year. Six new entries have been added to The World Factbook 2005. In the people category, a major infectious diseases field has been added for countries deemed to pose a higher degree of risk for travelers. In the economy category, entries have been included for current account balance, investment (gross fixed), public debt, and reserves of foreign exchange and gold. The transnational issues category has a new refugees and internally displaced persons entry. Revision of some individual country maps, first introduced in the 2001 edition, is continued in this edition." You can also download various parts of The World Factbook. It may take awhile for the window to open. [Text/Lowbandwith version available](Text/Low%20Bandwidth%20Version).

This is an excelent resource. I have been using earlier versions of the CIA Factbook for some time now.