Regional & Country Information

Regional and country resources are those related to, or about, a specific nation or region of the world. Place names are based on the Library of Congress's MARC Code List for Geographic Areas and/or the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names.

Sub-headings:

Africa

Asia

Australia

Caribbean

Europe

Latin America

Middle East

North America

South America

South Pacific

Resources in this category:

About.com
http://www.about.com/

About.com hosts websites whose content and links are created and/or selected by hundreds of "Guides," experts who provide articles, advice, and resources on a particular subject. Search by broad channels or more specific topics.

Arctic Theme Page
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/index.shtml

Part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this links to widely distributed Arctic-centered data and information from research institutions throughout the world. "Available information includes relevant data, graphics, and forecasts, including historical perspectives and in-depth analyses. Also included are a selection of Essays by Arctic experts on key issues in the Arctic."

Center for International Disaster Information
http://www.cidi.org/

Gives "information and guidance in support of appropriate international disaster relief." Reports on civil and natural disasters around the globe, chronologically arranged.

Central Intelligence Agency
http://www.cia.gov/

The Central Intelligence Agency provides unclassified intelligence reports and summaries, information about the CIA itself, and the World FactBook, which offers detailed geography information about each country.

CIA - The World Factbook
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html

This is the online version of the World Factbook, which includes information on every country in the world - from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Quick facts about geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and more. There is a also map and flags of the world collection.

Countries
http://www.ipl.org/div/pf/entry/48458

Do you need to do a school report on Finland? Are you looking for information about countries in Latin America? This IPL pathfinder is designed to find print and Internet resources about nations and regions around the world. You may have to consult a variety of sources before you find all the information that you need.

Country Indicators for Foreign Policy
http://www.carleton.ca/cifp/

"The CIFP represents an on-going effort to identify and assemble statistical information conveying the key features of the economic, political, social and cultural environments of countries around the world...The unique collection of country indicators generated by the project can be accessed through summary tables, country reports and this accompanying Internet database." Registration is required.

Cultural Profiles Project
http://www.cp-pc.ca/

This site contains over 100 country profiles available in both English and French. The entries give an overview of life in each country as well as information on immigrants to Canada from that country.

Economist.Com | Country Briefings
http://www.economist.com/countries/

"Pick a country... to see articles from The Economist, background profiles, forecast and statistics from The Economist Intelligence Unit, market and currency updates, news headlines and links." (Note: some articles require a subscription to Economist.Com premium content service.)

Emporis Buildings
http://www.emporis.com/en/

A database of information on over 34,000 high-rise buildings in more than 2500 cities worldwide. Search first for city, then browse for the buildings that interest you.

Footnotes to History
http://www.buckyogi.com/footnotes/

This site is dedicated to providing information about former nations that are largely unknown, and not referenced in many textbooks. Many of these nations were short-lived, quite small, or ethnic regions.

GeoHive Global Statistics
http://www.geohive.com/

Almanac of global statistics with focus on country profiles and regional profiles. Provides a wide variety of information related to population, surface area, urban areas, natural resources, economic data, census data, etc. Also provides links to international statistical agencies and other reputable sources.

GEOnet Names Server
http://earth-info.nima.mil/gns/html/

This database allows searching for geographic information on countries outside of the United States. It includes not only towns, cities and other populated places, but also features like rivers, lakes, roads, tunnels, schools, even individual rocks and other obscure features. The database will provide exact latitude and longitude information for the features.

Gheos World Atlas 2000
http://gheos.com/atlas/

Interactive maps of the world, along with statistical and informational profiles of individual countries.

InfoNation
http://www.cyberschoolbus.un.org/infonation/info.asp

"InfoNation is an easy-to-use, two-step database that allows you to view and compare the most up-to-date statistical data for the Member States of the United Nations. In this first menu, you can select up to seven countries. Then, you can proceed to the data menu where you will be able to select statistics and other data fields." You can get statistic on geography, economy, population, and social indicators.

NationMaster.com
http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php

"Welcome to NationMaster.com, a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. NationMaster is a vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, United Nations, World Health Organization, World Bank, World Resources Institute, UNESCO, UNICEF and OECD. Using the form above, you can generate maps and graphs on all kinds of statistics with ease."

Political Resources on the Net
http://www.politicalresources.net/

Political resources for every country in the world, including government sites, ministries, agencies, political parties, election information, plus links to country info from the CIA World Factbook. Extensive list of related websites. Browsable by country.

Population Reference Bureau Country Statistics and Reports
http://www.prb.org//?Section=PRB_Country_Profiles&Template=/...

This resource replaces the PopNet web site. PRB's country pages provide quick access to essential information on population, health, and the environment for over 200 countries. On each page, you'll find a fact sheet with demographic, health, and other development indicators, selected PRB reports or articles, and links to key sources of information, including the most relevant searchable databases on international development." PRB can also be displayed in Spanish and French.

Portals to the World
http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html

"Portals to the World contain selective links providing authoritative, in-depth information about the nations and other areas of the world. They are arranged by country or area with the links for each sorted into a wide range of broad categories. The links were selected by Area Specialists and other Library staff using Library of Congress selection criteria. When completed, the project will include all the nations of the world."

START Natural Language Question Answering System
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/infolab/globe.html

The START Natural Language artificial intelligence server at MIT interactively answers all kinds of geography questions posed by Web users in natural language queries. Ask questions or make requests such as "Show me a map of Turkey?," "What is the population of Rome?" or "What cities are within 300 miles of Moscow?"

U.S. Census Bureau International Database
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/

"The International Data Base (IDB) is a computerized data bank containing statistical tables of demographic and socio-economic data for 227 countries and areas of the world." Data goes back as far as 1950. See the introductory page to find general information about the database and to view graphs and other pre-aggregated data on world population.

U.S. Department of State Background Notes
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/

This is the current collection of Background Notes. Background Notes are official United States Government publications which profile countries and organizations of the world. Each entry generally include the following on each country: Profile, People, Government, Economy, History, Political Conditions, Economy, Foreign relations, Principal U.S. Officials . Background Notes provide information on geographic entities and international organizations and are updated periodically.

U.S. Department of State Background Notes Archives
http://www.state.gov/www/background_notes/index.html

Background Notes is an official United States Government publication which profiles countries and organizations of the world. This site is an archive of a past version of resource. It was last updated in 2001.

Wolfram|Alpha
http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Wolfram Alpha quickly locates facts, graphs, definitions, tables, numbers, formulas, and other data. Use the "Examples" page to browse and see all the different topics covered.

World Desk Reference
http://dev.prenhall.com/divisions/hss/worldreference/

"The World Desk Reference is packed with facts and statistics, maps, illustrations and diagrams. Each of the world's nations is analysed in up to 19 subject areas, from Climate to Chronology, from Aid to Transportation, from Politics to Economics. Key features: A complete overview of the modern world: physical, political, historical and economic; Each of the 192 nations surveyed and mapped in detail including full coverage of the world's newest nations; An invaluable guide to 20,000 of the world's most important places, including alternative spellings and recent place-name changes; More than 5,000 illustrations, charts and diagrams, and over 600 maps, 25,000 facts and statistics."

The World Gazetteer
http://www.gazetteer.de/

"This site provides information about current population of countries, their administrative areas, cities and towns as well as images of the current national flags." Includes place names in non-Roman scripts which can be displayed in unicode-capable browsers.

World InfoZone
http://www.worldinfozone.com/

A site with basic information, pictures and links related to countries throughout the world, as well as other educational links.

Worldwide Directory of Cities and Towns
http://www.fallingrain.com/world/

"This is a directory of 2,880,532 of the world's cities and towns, sorted by country and linked to a map for each town."

Worldwide Gazetteer
http://www.gazeteer.com/gazeteer/v2/index.aspx

A geographical dictionary with links to Web resources related to each country. Each entry links to resources in the following categories: brief overviews, research about the country, newspapers, business, politics and economics, health and wealth, language, and travel.