Background Notes are updated/revised as they are received from regional bureaus and are added to the database of the Department of State web site. They include information about the land, people, history, government, political conditions, economy, and foreign relations of independent states, some dependencies, and areas of special sovereignty. Archived versions of previous Background Notes are also available.

A comprehensive resource of facts and statistics on more than 250 countries and other entities.

Country Commercial Guides (CCGs) are prepared annually by U.S. embassies with the assistance of several U.S. government agencies. These reports present a comprehensive look at countries' commercial environments, using economic, political and market analysis. The CCGs were established by recommendation of the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee (TPCC), a multi-agency task force, to consolidate various reporting documents prepared for the U.S. business community. This resource now only exists as an archive, as all reports were done prior to 2002.

CIA World Factbooks for 16 years: 1989-2005.

The Country Studies Series contains the electronic versions of books previously published by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. It presents a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of countries throughout the world; it examines the interrelationships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural factors. At present, 102 countries and regions are covered. Notable omissions include Canada, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and other Western nations, as well as a number of African nations. Because the original intent of the Series' sponsor was to focus primarily on lesser known areas of the world, or regions in which U.S. forces might be deployed, the series is not all-inclusive.The date of information for each country appears on the title page of each country and at the end of each section of text.

Since 1972, Freedom House has published an annual assessment of the state of freedom in all countries (and select territories), now known as Freedom in the World. Individual countries are evaluated based on a checklist of questions on political rights and civil liberties that are derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Each country is assigned a rating for political rights and a rating for civil liberties based on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 representing the highest degree of freedom present and seven the lowest level of freedom. The combined average of each country’s political rights and civil liberties ratings determines an overall status of Free, Partly Free, or Not Free.

Listings of IMF reports and publications by country. Many are available full-text for free.

Produced by the U.S. Census Bureau, this is a "computerized data bank containing statistical tables of demographic and socioeconomic data for 227 countries and areas of the world." National- and regional-level data from 1950 to the present, and projections to 2050.

The Penn World Table provides purchasing power parity and national income accounts converted to international prices for 188 countries for some or all of the years 1950-2004. The European Union or the OECD provide more detailed purchasing power and real product estimates for their countries and the World Bank makes current price estimates for most PWT countries at the GDP level. From the Center for International Comparisons at the University of Pennsylvania.

The World Bank's premier annual compilation of data about development. (more info)