It was available for online browsing or as a downloadable file, I think a zip compressed PDF. I’m sure copies are available, but it would be nice to have an authoritative source.
curl -i 'https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook'
HTTP/2 302
content-length: 0
location: https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/spotlighting-the-world-factbook-as-we-bid-a-fond-farewell/
Same for all of the country pages - they redirect back to the same story: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/morocco/
The thing was released into the public domain! No reason at all to take it down - they could have left the last published version up with a giant banner at the top saying it's no longer maintained.
It clearly states on the page that the Factbook was continuously updated, with "new data uploaded this week".
https://www.amazon.com/CIA-World-Factbook-2025-2026/dp/15107...
I couldn't find a PDF or archive of the site online (other than the obvious archive.org) but I didn't look very hard.
The World Fact Book doesn't have this kind of commentary. For example read the entry on North Korea. I've excerpted the most critical parts here, and I think they are a long way from your characterization:
> After the end of Soviet aid in 1991, North Korea faced serious economic setbacks that exacerbated decades of economic mismanagement and resource misallocation.
> New economic development plans in the 2010s failed to meet government-mandated goals for key industrial sectors, food production, or overall economic performance. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, North Korea instituted a nationwide lockdown that severely restricted its economy and international engagement.
> As of 2024, despite slowly renewing cross-border trade with China, North Korea remained one of the world's most isolated countries and one of Asia's poorest
https://web.archive.org/web/20260103000011/https://www.cia.g...
And turned on GitHub Pages so you can browse it here: https://simonw.github.io/cia-world-factbook-2020/
It's also where a lot of the facts on Wikipedia came from. This is a real loss.
I trust CIA over official population numbers from a lot of countries. There was a thread on here recently that pointed out a lot of countries haven't conducted an effective census in many years, if at all: >>46810027
https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/03/13/budget-pol... (you can stop reading after the first couple paragraphs, it goes into federal budget politics circa 2013)
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/151078604X/
I was thinking it would be nice to have a final print edition for the book collection, Amazon seems to be under the impression that this newer version is coming out in April.
> I don't believe anything in Team B was really true
> [...]
> Casey was convinced that there was a single, organized network of evil in the world, [...] He found the proof he was looking for in a book called The Terror Network
The Power of Nightmares | Part 2 : The Phantom Victory | Adam Curtis Ful... https://youtube.com/watch?v=KolgBqJ95ug?t=6m16s re: Casey, Reagan, Bush, Wolfowitz and why we've spent trillions saving the world from such dastardly evil since Carter's record-setting low EJK term (which was affected by oil price shock)
The Power of Nightmares: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares
We're given two shit options which come about through a broken primary process and is reported on by monopolistic media. The news media and social media is siloed in such a way that people filter into one of two corporation-approved spheres of groupthink. These two spheres manufacture consent for each other in numerous ways, one of which is exemplified above. The good cop/bad cop setup makes it look like things are constantly getting broken only to have the illusion of being re-fixed by the other group, as measured by a pre-approved narratives that are disseminated.
The COVID pandemic is another great example. Sadly the CDC has been a disgrace under all recent administrations of both parties and has lots of blood on its hands:
https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
Unfortunately the WHO has similar issues:
https://old.reddit.com/r/ZeroCovidCommunity/comments/1q87aki...
Almost as if capital interests are running the show. But what are we fighting about in 2026? That's right, whether we should or should not be affiliated with the WHO, and to what extent our CDC should be funded. Two broken institutions and a performative fight about them. Meanwhile millions have/will see their grave earlier than they otherwise would have, thanks to long COVID (many of whom will never even make that connection, including their doctors who were spoonfed the "vax and relax" / "back to normal" messaging in service to an archaic consumption-based economy.