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other publications label it East Sea. What is your policy on naming geographic features?

      The Factbook staff follows the guidance of the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN). The BGN is the component of the United States Government that develops policies, principles, and procedures governing the spelling, use, and application of geographic names—domestic, foreign, Antarctic, and undersea. Its decisions enable all departments and agencies of the US Government to have access to uniform names of geographic features. The position of the BGN is that the names Burma and Sea of Japan be used in official US Government maps and publications.

      Why is most of the statistical information in the Factbook given in metric units, rather than the units standard to US measure?

      US Federal agencies are required by the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 (Public Law 94–168) and by Executive Order 12770 of July 1991 to use the International System of Units, commonly referred to as the metric system or SI. In addition, the metric system is used by over 95 percent of the world's population.

      Why don't you include information on minimum and maximum temperature extremes?

      The Factbook staff judges that this information would only be useful for some (generally smaller) countries. Larger countries can have large temperature extremes that do not represent the landmass as a whole. In the future, such a category may be adopted listing the extremes, but also adding a normal temperature range found throughout most of a country's territory.

      What information sources are used for the country flags?

      Flag designs used in The World Factbook are those recognized by the protocol office of the US Department of State.

      Why do your GDP (Gross Domestic Product) statistics differ from other sources?

      GDP dollar estimates in The World Factbook are derived from purchasing power parity (PPP) calculations. See the Notes and Definitions section on GDP methodology for more information.

      On the CIA Web site, Chiefs of State is updated weekly, but the last update for the Factbook was an earlier date. Why the discrepancy?

      Although Chiefs of State and The World Factbook both appear on the CIA Web site, they are produced and updated by separate staffs. Chiefs of State includes fewer countries but more leaders, and is updated more frequently than The World Factbook, which has a much larger database, and includes all countries.

      Some percentage distributions do not add to 100. Why not?

      Because of rounding, percentage distributions do not always add precisely to 100%. Rounding of numbers always results in a loss of precision—i.e., error. This error becomes apparent when percentage data are totaled, as the following two examples show:

      Original Data Rounded to whole integer

      Example 1 43.2 43

       30.4 30

       26.4 26

      ———

       100.0 99

      Example 2 42.8 43

       31.6 32

       25.6 26

      ———

       100.0 101

      When this occurs, we do not force the numbers to add exactly to 100, because doing so would introduce additional error into the distribution.

      What rounding convention does The World Factbook use?

      In deciding on the number of digits to present, the Factbook staff assesses the accuracy of the original data and the needs of US Government officials. All of the economic data are processed by computer—either at the source or by the Factbook staff. The economic data presented in The Factbook, therefore, follow the rounding convention used by virtually all numerical software applications, namely, any digit followed by a "5" is rounded up to the next higher digit, no matter whether the original digit is even or odd. Thus, for example, when rounded to the nearest integer, 2.5 becomes 3, rather than 2, as occurred in some pre-computer rounding systems.

      Technical

      Does The World Factbook comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation

       Act regarding accessibility of Web pages?

      The World Factbook home page has a link entitled "Text/Low Bandwidth Version." The country data in the text version is fully accessible. We believe The World Factbook is compliant with the Section 508 law in both fact and spirit. If you are experiencing difficulty, please use our comment form to provide us details of the specific problem you are experiencing and the assistive software and/or hardware that you are using so that we can work with our technical support staff to find and implement a solution. We welcome visitors' suggestions to improve accessibility of The World Factbook and the CIA Web site.

      I am using the Factbook online and it is not working. What is wrong?

      Hundreds of "Factbook" look-alikes exist on the Internet. The Factbook site at: www.cia.gov is the only official site.

      When I attempt to download a PDF (Portable Document Format) map file (or some other map) the file has no image. Can you fix this?

      Some of the files on The World Factbook Web site are large and could take several minutes to download on a dial-up connection. The screen might be blank during the download process.

      When I open a map on The World Factbook site, it is fuzzy or granular, or too big or too small. Why?

      Adjusting the resolution setting on your monitor should correct this problem.

      Is The World Factbook country data available in machine-readable format? All I can find is HTML, but I'm looking for simple tabular data.

      The Factbook Web site now features "Rank Order" pages for selected Factbook entries. "Rank Order" pages are available for those data fields identified with a small bar chart icon located next to the title of the data entry. In addition, all of the "Rank Order" pages can be downloaded as tab-delimited data files that can be opened in other applications such as spreadsheets and databases.

      This page was last updated on 11 January, 2005

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      @Afghanistan

      Introduction Afghanistan

      Background:

       Afghanistan's recent history is a story of war and civil unrest.

       The Soviet Union invaded in 1979, but was forced to withdraw 10

       years later by anti-Communist mujahidin forces. The Communist regime

       in Kabul collapsed in 1992. Fighting that subsequently erupted among

       the various mujahidin factions eventually helped to spawn the

       Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement that fought to end

       the warlordism and civil war which gripped the country. The Taliban

       seized Kabul in 1996 and were able to capture most of the country

       outside of Northern Alliance srongholds primarily in the northeast.

       Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, a US, Allied, and

       Northern Alliance military action toppled the Taliban for sheltering

       Osama BIN LADIN. In late 2001, a conference in Bonn, Germany,

       established a process for political reconstruction that ultimately

       resulted in the adoption of a new constitution and presidential

       election in 2004. On 9 October 2004, Hamid KARZAI became the first

       democratically elected president of Afghanistan. The new Afghan

       government's next task is to hold National Assembly elections,

       tentatively scheduled for April 2005.

      Geography Afghanistan

      Location:

       Southern

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