Here's a great site if you need or want to know anything, from area to unemployment rate, about basically any country.

CIA world factbook

Last updated January 1st 2002 so it's recent enough, well, at least more recent than the 1986 Encyclopedia Britannica on the bookshelf in the loungeroom.

Not that impressed. Facts are extensive and presumably correct. The written passages show noticacbe bias for example West Bank and Nicaragua.

Well, being run by the people it is you could expect that kind of thing, I suppose. But for me it is far more recent than anything I have at home.

I first discovered the CIA factbook about four or five years ago, when I bought a computer with a CD-ROM drive but didn't see any reason to get on to the Internet. I got a CD from a software vendor with all sorts of material on it, including the factbook (I think I got something like the 1995 edition in 1998). However, since I've been on-line, I've never thought to check out the current version.

I agree that it's a pretty good and up-to-date source of statistical, demographic and political information, and I don't think it strays from fact into opinion very often. I think the coverage of the UK, for example, is pretty impartial. The statement that we are a "gateway country" for South American cocaine and a major money-laundering centre is the plain and simple truth: and as for the money-laundering, we shall continue (like all truly great criminals) to laugh at those who want to stop us.

All the same, I'll probably continue to get Britannica on DVD for £40 or so each year, because it covers so much more ground besides the CIA Factbook's domain.

That's pretty schmick!

I didn't realise we had a 92 per cent "caucasian" population, but I live in Melbourne, where I suppose the percentage would deviate a bit???

(Hey, Aboriginals are less than 1 per cent of the population. We don't even get our own category - it's "Aboriginal and Other"! Crikey that's depressing!!)

Hmmm, not convinced about the figures it gives for us. We had a Census only 18 months ago so I would prefer to go by those figures.

Sue, of course I'd have more confidence in a census than in the CIA Factbook.That said, some local authorities in Britain are claiming that the 2001 census wasn't accurate and wasn't properly conducted. Westminster City Council, for example, isn't at all happy about its population statistics (in the census) - 40% (!) below the Council's own most recent estimate. Of course, this is of real importance to the Council as its grants from central govenrment depend to a large extent on population.

It's being said that during the census whole blocks of flats and even streets were overlooked. The mind - or at least mine - is left a-goggle and a-boggle.

As a former census taker (I'm told my CV would never be taken as non fiction, therefore should be presented as fiction) I remember trying very hard to execute orders, with my little stylus handy, punching a data card, I was very very diligent, but some people were terrible and hostile, and they also had big mean dogs...so as the houses were all the same in the area I did, we'd put four bedroom and two bath, or three bedroom and one bath...before even knocking on the door...then we'd try to get the answers out of them we needed rather than having to ask them how many baths their house had...it was obvious, everyone had the same!
In America you have to worry about guns too...some people will not tolerate being disturbed though this was the local govt and therefore mandatory.
I was eighteen and quite young looking so it wasn't easy asking people about "To which ethnic group do you most closely belong?" I also had to speak Spanish to about one third of the households.
So it's a miracle these things have halfway accurate stats quite frankly! I mean, I was conscientious by nature, though it meant going back to aggressive people's homes and trying to get them to answer, after work hours...rather than putting refused to participate...
but someone less scrupulous...would just fill them in on his own and stuff them into an envelope!

I did find the languages spoken handy in this study for the challenges recently...I guess if they've sent some people out into the field or jungle or villages, then we might as well benefit from that experience!

In America you have people asking the questions? For the census here someone comes and drops the forms off, you fill them out on the picked night (always a Tuesday) and then they come and pick them up later within a week. I think it's a crime NOT to participate. Out where we live, because of the distance, the census collectors have hundreds of kilometres to drive to drop off and pick up all the forms, when they came last time the woman brought her huband along for the drive and, technically, he wasn't allowed even to get out of the car as he wasn't a trained census person. Pretty stringent rules, I thought.

Bloomsby, don't forget that I do not live in the UK, I think our census was probably quite well conducted. They even wanted to know how many of us were connected to the Internet!

Sue. I nearly included a comment to the effect that 'across the pond' the sort of shambles I described would presumably be unlikely. As for the internet question, I hope they didn't also ask for your email addy, too. (lol)

Bruyere. Aggressive dogs and, even worse, firearms! That is utterly appalling! (I was going to give you a smilie too, but with firearms there's nothing to smile about)

Well Bloomsby, you may smile at your intrepid young Bruyere traipsing around the neighborhoods there with dogs and possible firearms...I guess it was an assumption. If I saw an NRA sticker on a pickup truck I felt like it was a bad replay of Easy Rider...
What a way to make a living for a student!
At least Pitbulls didn't really make the front page of the news, just German Shepherds.

Oh, Heather Big aggressive dogs ... You were much, much braver than I would been at that age.

Well I do admit the temptation was great at simply filling in something myself...

You know that when the lady came here to my door in France, it wasn't an official census but I figured that I'd had to do the job, so I'd help her out...I went through the whole shebang, and I knew she'd find few people willing to do her survey in my building as most of the people are holiday home owners or renters...
And then, after a half an hour she asked my age range..I told her, she said, "Oh I'm sorry, you'll need to be over fifty for this survey..."
I told her she should try my neighbors but I doubted if any of the ofter fifties would oblige her.
Oh well, I tried to do my bit.
Wonder if she wasn't a CIA lady!

Heather. ... You mean you didn't manage to persuade her to 'fudge' your age?

Long ago, the parents of a friend of mine spent several months in Vienna, as her father was doing research on Austrian history. They rented a flat and had to register with the police. There was a lot of paperwork and when they finally thought they'd got it all in order, my friend's mother took the pile of forms off to the police-station. The policeman who checked through it all before putting the 'Amtsstampiglie' on them noticed that my friend's father has failed to sign a couple of the forms.

Imagine my friend's mother astonishment when the police officer suddenly asked if she could do a passable forgery (jawohl, forgery) of hubby's signature ...! He added, 'If you can, it will save us all a lot of time and trouble'. What surprised him even more, was that she had never been asked to do that in England

Jaroslav Hasek would have had great fun ... His Schwejk would n'doubt have said (in German) 'Das hat alles einen tiefen Sinn' (Free English version: 'There's a deep significance to all that.')
wowow

Just thinking about your age question, Bruyere, we've had a government survey happening about health and so they ring up ask how many people are in the house and then the computer would pick one out and they'd do the survey on that person. I said I was more than happy to do it but the computer picked the oldest person in the house, i.e. Jack ... I told them he wasn't here and I doubt he would do it anyway, but they wouldn't take my word and insisted they ring back later. So they ring back and Jack answers the phone and tells them that he didn't want to do it. And they keep ringing back!! Four times now they've done it and I usually answer the phone and say he isn't it because I know he'll start shouting at them if he has tobe polite once more.

WEll, let's see, hubby's signature...I hesitate to reveal how many times in my life I've had to go ahead and do it, or else gather cobwebs...
Most self respecting spouses do that, don't they?

But Copago, it's absolutely true that you'll get people on the phone for their surveys and they've been given instructions they must obey and they won't accept anyone else...

I did get called up by the illustrious Gallup poll one night in the States, I thought finally, I was rather flattered...and then they asked for the head of household...meaning the man...I got rid of that silly young thing in two seconds...

Another thing here is that I don't vote in France, but I can vote in certain situations, therefore, school board things I'm allowed to...and I do, yet I don't vote in other things. So many surveys wouldn't technically allow me, being a furreigner and all that.

Hey, I did do a survey for some people once on a granola or muesli bar, it's on the market too...figured I'd give the young people a break...does that count?

Yesterday I perused the entry on the UK and was interested to see that the CIA lumps Anglicans and Roman Catholics together - a view that wouldn't please either group in the UK (with the possible exception of a tiny number of the most extreme High Church people). Is this the standard perception of Episcopalians in the US? Btw, how would Roman Catholics feel about being lumped together with a denomination that doesn't recognize the authority of the Pope??

The Australian entry for Religion:

Quote:

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Anglican 26.1%, Roman Catholic 26%, other Christian 24.3%, non-Christian 11%, other 12.6%

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Obviously the guys who did the research down here were a little more meticulous??

(I don't mind getting "lumped together" with the Anglicans. Some of my best friends are heathens! )

Hi Tanzen. Thanks ... It just shows that, like many other reference works, the "CIA Factbook" is rather uneven ... Btw, I wonder how well the CIA researches in the course of its spying and what groups it ignorantly lumps together when engaging in its primary activity ... Oops, that's the sort of thing one's not supposed to ask.

Thanks for that chuckle of envisioning some secret agents like Maxwell Smart in the jungle somewhere trying to assess the religious practices of the locals and yelling to Hymie his robot friend from a boiling pot..."I think you'd better write down animist..."

Now, as I was a census taker, I thankfully did not have to ask anyone's religion, simply "to which of the following ethnic groups do you consider yourself as belonging.." that was bad enough!
Imagine a 17 year old kid asking that...and I remind you, I was trembling with the NRA stickers on the vehicles parked in the driveway when I asked stuff like that.

By the way, on an aside...this isn't hijacking Copago, it's hijillling...but where have you noticed your religion being asked?
I think at the hospital when I was signing all the papers for the birth of my first child in the Southern States, they asked my religion...it was a Christian denomination for the hospital though it was the place where our insurance reimbursed you...so I was a little iffy about putting anything down...
after all is this to know what clergyperson to get you if you get...well, to the end?
But in the South, people ask you your "membership" on the street when you stroll, as it's a part of life in a lot of places...I'm not offended by this, I simply smile and say, "I'm already taken".
As the various church denominations make up a part of life, it's just like asking you, what sort of club you belong to...no one would dream of taking offense as elsewhere I've lived.
But I cannot honestly recall being asked my religion anywhere else except when I applied to teach in a place that had anti-discrimination laws but also, asked you which church you attended! I answered truthfully without compromising myself, got the job...but I've always wondered if it wasn't due to the fact I go way back to an anabaptist group similar to their own...though they'll be the first to tell me that it isn't the same...and my own relatives who no longer belong to the group would say, "well that's normal, they've always thought they were superior to us, and they always had the biggest farms!"
What a joy that the last two generations dropped this stuff! I'd have been wearing a prayer cap and driving a buggy...if not.
So how do they form these religious stats in your opinion, besides sending CIA in?

Tanzen I see why we get along so well...Heather is the ultimate pagan name!

I was rather worried to find that Britain's national holiday is listed as the Queen's birthday in June. I have never known anyone to have a holiday on that day.

A British 'national' holiday? Surely, the very idea is decidedly 'Continental' ...

Bruyere, the kind of thing I had in mind when referring to poor (or even no) research by the CIA was the prospect of harmless Islamic groups getting 'lumped together' with terrorist organizations ...

Hey, we get the Queen's Birthday (long weekend ) in June. God Save the Queen!

Bruyere, people ask me if I'm a pagan all the time. I'm guessing it's because of the tattoos and my preference of velvet clothing...people usually fall off their chairs when I tell them I'm (technically) a Catholic !!