The 1999 CIA World Factbook

"The 1999 CIA World Factbook" by the United States Central Intelligence Agency is a detailed collection of facts and figures about countries around the world, created for use by the U.S. government. This book gives information on things like where countries are, how many people live there, what their governments are like, and how their economies work. It's meant to be a reliable source of information for people in the government and anyone else who wants to understand what's happening globally. The introduction explains how the Factbook came to be, starting as a set of intelligence reports and growing into what it is now. It also describes how the book is organized, with sections for each country, as well as extra information in appendixes and notes. The start of the book stresses how important good information is for making decisions in the government and points out that many different parts of the government work together to put the Factbook together, showing that it's an important tool for understanding the world.