Show HN: CIA World Factbook Archive (1990–2025), searchable and exportable(cia-factbook-archive.fly.dev)
200 pointsby MilkMp8 hours ago17 comments
  • roystingan hour ago
    Hi. Nice project. One issue though; if you go to the Factbook for any year[1], the link to the entry for “Germany”[2] will take you to the entry for the Gambia for every year I have checked. I have not noticed any other countries where that happens.

    [1] https://cia-factbook-archive.fly.dev/archive/2002

    [2] https://cia-factbook-archive.fly.dev/archive/2002/GM

    • tjschan hour ago
      I found another example: searching for "Nicaragua" takes you to the page for "Niger".
      • MilkMp42 minutes ago
        Hi there, I have located the root cause and will be fixing the issue:

        Root cause: CIA uses FIPS codes (CanonicalCode), which differ from ISO Alpha-2 for many countries. Templates and SQL queries prioritized CanonicalCode over ISOAlpha2, so URL codes like /archive/2025/AU matched the wrong country.

        Australia (AU) -> American Samoa (AS = CIA FIPS for Australia) Singapore (SG) -> Senegal (SG = CIA FIPS for Senegal) Germany (DE) -> Gambia (GM = CIA FIPS for Germany)

    • MilkMpan hour ago
      [dead]
  • eddythompson8022 minutes ago
    Cool project. The world population seems to be double counted. I think https://cia-factbook-archive.fly.dev/analysis/trends
    • MilkMp10 minutes ago
      Found the root cause. The "World" entity (population ~8 billion) was being called alongside all individual countries, doubling the total. Thank you again!
    • MilkMp17 minutes ago
      Will fix right now! I think I was looking at this for too long and missed some things. Thank you :)
  • b86 hours ago
    2025-2026 is available (to purchase/read outside or ur site) and the last version 2026-2027 is planed for release on April 7th, https://www.amazon.com/CIA-World-Factbook-2026-2027-ebook/dp....
    • crims0nan hour ago
      Somehow it escaped me that these were published books as well. Thank you kind stranger.
    • toomuchtodo43 minutes ago
      Internet Archive has 2025-2026 in their possession, should make it into OpenLibrary eventually once scanned.
    • MilkMp6 hours ago
      Will add to this once it's out. Thanks for sending this :)
      • b8an hour ago
        I have the 2025-2026 one. Email me for it.
  • ggm4 hours ago
    This is an archive of the service which is being shut down under the current WH administration?
    • 1f60c4 hours ago
      Yes, that is correct.
  • kshri243 hours ago
    There is a bug in the time series charts. Data needs to be normalized prior to charting. For example: https://cia-factbook-archive.fly.dev/archive/field/IN/Broadb...
  • 3eb7988a16633 hours ago
    Just an incredible service. Really appreciate that you put all of your backend work into the open.
  • an hour ago
    undefined
  • celeryd6 hours ago
    Any way to download them all at once?
    • MilkMp6 hours ago
      Hey there, will add the feature. Wasn't sure if people's computers could handle it all in one, lol, but will make it available in the data export page.
      • ngcc_hk2 hours ago
        Not all. But some may. And in case you were shut down someone else can continue and one day it may be resurfaced perhaps even in USA.
  • cwnyth3 hours ago
    Kudos! I was working on doing this as well, so it's nice to see it already done.
  • ronald_petty6 hours ago
    I like the timeline feature. Maybe I need to spend more time, but to see political changes / borders / etc. would all be great! Keep up the good work.
  • FergusArgyll6 hours ago
    Nice!

    One thing; you're supposed to write "Cannot confirm or deny my affiliation with the CIA"

    • sailfast5 hours ago
      That’s a bit of a canary is it not? You don’t need to say that and wouldn’t know to say that unless you had worked in the space or wanted us to think you did :)
    • MilkMp6 hours ago
      Thanks, I will change it!
  • nubg5 hours ago
    Site loads very slowly for me. Tried various devices and networks. Same for a friend of mine overseas.
    • MilkMp5 hours ago
      Will scale the website
      • nubg4 hours ago
        To clarify, I am a shill for fly.io and wanted to get you to spend more money by scaling it up. The site loaded instantaneously on the first try, so fast I thought it was local.
      • Betelbuddy5 hours ago
        You should include this one, will also go away soon most likely:

        https://www.cia.gov/resources/cia-maps/

        • MilkMp5 hours ago
          I'll start working on this now! Thank you for sending it! It will be interesting to see if I can incorporate them into the globes or when the country info pops up!
  • daveelkan4 hours ago
    found a bug: Australia links to American Samoa in 2025 archive.
    • stephen_g3 hours ago
      Yes I noticed that too, and clicking on Austria takes you to Australia instead! (AU instead of AT which is Austria's country code)

      Then when you actually are in Australia, if you click back to 2001 or earlier it changes to 'Ashmore and Cartier Islands'

      • MilkMp27 minutes ago
        Hi there, I have located the root and sent out a bug fix.

        Root cause: The CIA World Factbook, published by the Central Intelligence Agency, uses the U.S. Government's FIPS 10-4 country codes, which differ from the ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 codes used by the rest of the world. Of the 281 entities in our database, 173 have different FIPS and ISO codes. Our lookups matched FIPS codes first, so when codes collided between the two systems, the wrong country was loaded. Fixed all 13 queries and 6 templates to always prefer ISO over FIPS.

        Examples fixed:

        Australia (ISO=AU) was loading American Samoa (FIPS=AQ, but Australia's FIPS=AS collides with American Samoa's ISO=AS) Singapore (ISO=SG) was loading Senegal (FIPS=SG) Germany (ISO=DE) was loading Gambia (FIPS=GM = Germany's FIPS, ISO=GM = Gambia) Bahamas (ISO=BS) was loading Burkina Faso (FIPS=BF = Bahamas' FIPS, ISO=BF = Burkina Faso)

      • MilkMp2 hours ago
        Will fix. Thank you! Most likely a grouping problem due to the MasterCountry ID.
    • gbennett71an hour ago
      Confirmed, affects multiple years' data
  • RobRivera6 hours ago
    Hurray!

    I didnt discover this until I saw the recent post about its deactivation.

  • ohyoutravel5 hours ago
    This is pretty basic but kinda neat. A good way to browse the fact books like a website. Definitely could use more features but imo superior than flipping through a PDF.
    • MilkMp5 hours ago
      Originally, my plan was just to create the archive, but I have expanded the scope, lol.
    • MilkMp5 hours ago
      Hey, what features would you like to see??
      • ix1014 hours ago
        Hi, thanks for this! Not sure if you're aware that clicking Australia goes to American Samoa, similar issue with some others that I encountered (Bahamas -> Burkina faso).
        • MilkMp27 minutes ago
          Hi there, I have located the root and sent out a bug fix.

          Root cause: The CIA World Factbook, published by the Central Intelligence Agency, uses the U.S. Government's FIPS 10-4 country codes, which differ from the ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 codes used by the rest of the world. Of the 281 entities in our database, 173 have different FIPS and ISO codes. Our lookups matched FIPS codes first, so when codes collided between the two systems, the wrong country was loaded. Fixed all 13 queries and 6 templates to always prefer ISO over FIPS.

          Examples fixed:

          Australia (ISO=AU) was loading American Samoa (FIPS=AQ, but Australia's FIPS=AS collides with American Samoa's ISO=AS) Singapore (ISO=SG) was loading Senegal (FIPS=SG) Germany (ISO=DE) was loading Gambia (FIPS=GM = Germany's FIPS, ISO=GM = Gambia) Bahamas (ISO=BS) was loading Burkina Faso (FIPS=BF = Bahamas' FIPS, ISO=BF = Burkina Faso)

        • MilkMp2 hours ago
          [dead]
  • nephihaha5 hours ago
    What is its copyright status?
    • MilkMp5 hours ago
      The data from the CIA World Factbook is in the public domain (being a U.S. Government work) and is free for anyone to use. The ETL scripts and data tools available in the GitHub repository are open source and licensed under the MIT License. However, the web application itself is proprietary software, with all rights reserved.
  • shevy-java6 hours ago
    Hmm. It's kind of weird, because I think I actually used it in the 1990s, probably shortly before Wikipedia emerged. Ever since Wikipedia, I don't think I used the CIA world Factbook much at all, so in a way I guess this partly explains why the website is now defunct. But I am a tiny bit sad that it is gone, if only for a piece of nostalgia from the 1990s era. I think we need to be careful - yes, wikipedia has that information, but we kind of lose websites here. That is a potential danger, because we end up with more and more of a monopoly which is rarely good (ok, wikipedia may be an exception but it also has intrinsic quality issues; it is still excellent in many ways but not perfect, and we may get tunnel vision the more websites vanish - just look at the AI slop autogenerated "content" or "affiliate" links you see in a google search, if anyone is still using that).
    • MilkMp6 hours ago
      Glad I was able to get the original fact book data that other archivists have gathered over the years- Project Gutenberg (plain text), Wayback Machine (HTML zips and factbook.jsons, and one from the agency's websites
    • cwnyth3 hours ago
      Wikipedia has some consistency issues and often linked to the CIA Factbook as well.
    • orhmeh094 hours ago
      World facts provided by the CIA, too, have intrinsic quality issues. I'm not too worried!