Information About Countries  

 CIA Factbook 

CIA World Factbook
Concise and authorative.

• Altapedia is quite similar
• The US State Dept also has country data
• CountryWatch - appears to have much more data

 More Resources - World 

• United Nations Statistics Division - Not so much useful free data, but very official
• NationMaster - Compare countries on a wide variety of stats, in graph form
• Aneki - Ranks countries using statistics of a more entertaining kind
• Statistics Sources - Links to statistic sites, listed by country
• Elections and Electoral Systems - Big page, listed by country
• Population Index - a searchable and browsable database containing 46,035 abstracts of demographic literature published in Population Index in the period 1986-2000
• International Trade Data Network - Lets casual visitors have free access for 30 days
• EIU ViewsWire - Business intelligence covering 195 countries
• Religious Statistics - By country or religion
• Census Finder - directory of free census records

 More Resources - USA 

• US Census Bureau - Lots of data from the 2000 census
• American FactFinder - Also from the Census Bureau, but more aimed at public consumption
• CensusScope - uses the Census data as well
• Name Statistics - see which are the most popular
• 50 States - A touch commercial, but plenty of useful info on the states and capitals

 More Resources - UK 

• 1901 Census