The standard behind every maintained record

How the Almanac establishes a fact

A fact is not complete until a reader can tell what was measured, when it was true, who reported it, and where to verify it.

Every maintained fact carries its record

Each value keeps a stable subject and measure, a plain-language label, its unit, the source value without hidden rounding, the observation period, the producing organization, a direct source link, the source update date when supplied, and the date the source was checked.

Dates are part of the fact

“Latest” means the latest nonempty observation published for that place and measure. It does not imply that every country was observed in the same year. Projections, modeled estimates, provisional figures, and observed values remain visibly distinct.

Authority follows the subject

The broad comparison register uses maintained international datasets. A full subject category moves to the institution with the direct statistical mandate: demographic measures to the United Nations Population Division, health to the World Health Organization, labor to the International Labour Organization, education to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, and communications to the International Telecommunication Union.

Disagreement is recorded, not erased

Authoritative figures can differ because their definitions, reference periods, or methods differ. The Almanac keeps those distinctions and dates visible. It does not silently choose the larger number, substitute a regional average, or fill a missing value from a neighboring country.

History is edited event by event

A timeline milestone must identify one event on one date in concise independently written prose, with a direct source. Multi-date source fields and procedural narratives remain in the preserved archive until an editor separates and verifies them. The absence of a polished milestone is preferable to a misleading one.

The final Factbook is a historical layer

The preserved final CIA World Factbook provides a federal record of what the former reference reported. It never becomes current merely by appearing beside maintained data. Country pages lead with maintained observations and label archived fields as historical baselines.

The test

A reader should be able to open the source, identify the same measure and period, reproduce the displayed value from the retained source number, and understand any difference from another authority. If that chain is incomplete, the record is not finished.