This is a list of entities and changes in ''The World Factbook''. ''

The World Factbook ''The World Factbook'', also known as the ''CIA World Factbook'', is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print version is availabl ...

'' is an annual publication of the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

with

almanac An almanac (also spelled ''almanack'' and ''almanach'') is an annual publication listing a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and othe ...

-style information about the

countries of the world The following is a list providing an overview of sovereign states around the world with information on their status and recognition of their sovereignty. The 206 listed states can be divided into three categories based on membership withi ...

. As of July 2011, ''The World Factbook'' consists of 267 entities. These entities can be divided into categories. These categories are: *Independent countries *Others *Dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereignty *Miscellaneous *Other entities After the list of entities, there is a table that lists entities that have been dropped, added, renamed, or consolidated in ''The World Factbook''.

List of entities

The list of entities follows below. The names and flags of entities are as listed in the ''Factbook'' and may differ from other sources.

Independent countries

This is a list of independent countries. The CIA defines an ''independent country'' as people "politically organized into a sovereign state with a definite territory". In this category, there are 195 entities:

Others

This is a list of other places set apart from the list of independent countries. There are two entities in this category:

Dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereignty

This category is a list of places affiliated with another country. They may be subdivided into categories using the country they are affiliated with:

Miscellaneous

This category is for Antarctica and places in dispute. There are five entities here: *

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

Paracel Islands The Paracel Islands, also known as the Xisha Islands () and the Hoang Sa Archipelago ( vi, Quần đảo Hoàng Sa, lit=Yellow Sand Archipelago), are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea. The archipelago includes about 130 small coral ...

Spratly Islands The Spratly Islands ( fil, Kapuluan ng Kalayaan; zh, c=南沙群島/南沙群岛, s=, t=, p=Nánshā Qúndǎo; Malay, id, Kepulauan Spratly; vi, Quần đảo Trường Sa) are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea. Composed ...

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

Other entities

This category is for the World and the

ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...

s. There are five oceans and the World (the World entry is intended as a summary of the other entries ) : *

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...

World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

Changes in ''The World Factbook''

This table lists changes in the entities in the ''Factbook''. Entities that have been added are in green; dropped entities are in red; the flag last used by the entity is shown as well. Entities that have changed their name are in blue; entities that have been redirected and consolidated into another entry are in purple.

Notes

These entities have been consolidated into the

United States Pacific Island Wildlife Refuges The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is a group of unorganized, mostly unincorporated United States Pacific Island territories managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Int ...

entry. On April 27, 1992, Serbia and Montenegro, the final two republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), formed a new nation, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Until 2001, the U.S. Government did not recognize the FRY as a state. The U.S. government also decided not to accept the FRY or any the other republics as a

successor state Succession of states is a concept in international relations regarding a successor state that has become a sovereign state over a territory (and populace) that was previously under the sovereignty of another state. The theory has its roots in 19th- ...

to the SFRY.

References

External links

''The World Factbook'' website

The World Factbook Change Log
Detailed changes within the CIA's ''World Factbook'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Entities and changes in the World Factbook Entities Lists of places Central Intelligence Agency publications