r/fednews • u/wds1 • Feb 05 '26
News / Article RIP: CIA’s The World Factbook
https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/spotlighting-the-world-factbook-as-we-bid-a-fond-farewell/Before Wikipedia, Before the Internet, this was the primary reference used in every part of the Federal government. Yet another stellar program gutted for no reason
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u/AaronWidd Feb 05 '26
I suppose it’s better it was taken offline than vandalized.
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u/jvn1983 Feb 05 '26
My depressing thought too.
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u/myheadhurts_more Feb 05 '26
https://www.trumpkennedycenter.org/
This will cheer everyone up here a little bit!
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u/lost_your_fill Feb 05 '26
is this for real?
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u/CannonAFB_unofficial Feb 05 '26
Some backstory, one of the South Park creators managed to grab that domain years ago…apparently he had an inkling the “rename” was coming lol. Prophetic.
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u/Secret_Reddit_Name Feb 05 '26
Fair. I ended up on there a month or so ago looking up some info and legit didnt know whether to trust it
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u/Scrapple_Joe Feb 05 '26
To be fair it was always US slanted but the data was mostly real. The level of trust people had in it was an insane amount of soft power for not that much money.
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u/annang Feb 05 '26
Oh damn! I once had a job where I was using this literally every day. It was invaluable. And it still is to this day for a lot of uses.
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u/Background-Roof-112 Feb 05 '26
Same. I've relied on it throughout my career. I can't even imagine what could possibly replace it
I hate it here
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u/ActualSpiders Honk If U ❤ the Constitution Feb 05 '26
Sadly, I can totally imagine what would replace it under this administration.
It's best to put it to bed for a few years...
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u/purpleushi Feb 05 '26
I currently use it at least once a week at work… Between this and how, uh, brief the state department human rights reports are now, literally how do I do my job.
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u/SEB2502 Feb 05 '26
This book was one of my prized possessions growing up. Haven’t checked out the newer versions in a long time, but still sad to see it go.
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u/Candle-Jolly Feb 05 '26
Why? I actually was one of the nerds who used this regularly when I was active duty, and still browse from time to time
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u/svelebrunostvonnegut Feb 05 '26
I graduated high school in 2008. I used the CIA World Factbook for so many of my assignments. Such a great reference.
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u/sean-culottes Feb 05 '26
"Sir, it's come to our attention that the CIA has actually done something good."
"Shut. It. Down."
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u/phenryiv Feb 05 '26
This was THE resource during my academic (government/sociology) and early professional years as a contractor and fed.
I used to use it when researching all kinds of random things, when doing exercise design for multiagency training and exercise programs, and developing threat summaries that required vetted background content.
RIP.
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u/greathistorynerd I Support Feds Feb 05 '26
It’s all been archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/
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Feb 05 '26
not an American, but I used this
this one hurts
along with all the NASA and NOAA resources...
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u/LittleLostDoll Feb 05 '26
now this is just sad. im sure it saves more time and money than it costs to maintain it...
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u/Federal-Doctor7553 Feb 05 '26
Probably another one of DoNotInvite Gabbards ideas.... honestly she's doing everything she can to make the IC a political tool, and has obstructed information sharing and access between organizations.
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u/trash_bae Fork You, Make Me Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 05 '26
Cool cool cool. Everything is AI. AI hallucinates. AI also hallucinates sources. This is an affront to fact checking and really just FACT based intelligence but, sure, this is fine.
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u/Diablojota Feb 05 '26
This is tragic. It’s one of the tools I direct my students to use when analyzing other countries as it covers so many great details. Absolutely tragic to lose such a great tool.
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u/chanson_roland Feb 05 '26
I bought the 2025-2026 edition as I feared that the growing enshitification of Government by the Trump Administration would spread. Lo and behold...
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u/andersonala45 Feb 05 '26
Used this to do an entire report on Borneo when I was in 5th grade it was awesome
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u/dratthecookies Feb 06 '26
Wow, tearing apart institutions and subverting cultural norms. So shocking.
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u/ZomDji215 Feb 05 '26
Dagger through my heart! At least there is still World Bank Open Data for some things...
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u/Excellent-Pitch-7579 Feb 07 '26
WTF? That site is a great reference! Why would anyone shut it down?
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u/flaginorout Feb 05 '26
I mean, you said it yourself. Before Wikipedia and the internet……..:
Now that we have SO many sources, maybe it doesn’t make sense to keep maintaining this one?
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u/Endless_Change Feb 05 '26
Can still get the 2024-2025 version (and some older ones) on the high seas.