It provides a two- to three-page summary of the demographics, geography, communications, government, economy, and military of 266 international entities,[2] including U.S.-recognized countries, dependencies, and other areas in the world.

The World Factbook is prepared by the CIA for the use of U.S. government officials, and its style, format, coverage, and content are primarily designed to meet their requirements.

[5] Copying the official seal of the CIA without permission is prohibited by the US federal Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949 (50 U.S.C. § 403m).

[12] The Factbook has been available via the World Wide Web (The internet) since October 1994,[13] receiving about six million visits per month in 2006;[4] it can also be downloaded.

[5] As of July 2011[update], The World Factbook comprises 266 entities,[2] which can be divided into the following categories:[22] Specific regions within a country or areas in dispute among countries, such as Kashmir, are not covered,[23] but other areas of the world whose status is disputed, such as the Spratly Islands, have entries.

[25] This criterion was invoked in the 2007[26] and 2011[27] editions with the decision to drop the entries for French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, and Reunion.

[31] The website further erroneously mentioned that the Chagos Archipelago is also claimed by the Seychelles,[31] while officially 116 countries including the Seychelles against only 6 countries including the United States voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution dated 24 May 2019 which called upon the UK to withdraw its colonial administration from the Chagos Archipelago unconditionally to enable Mauritius to complete the decolonization of its territory as rapidly as possible.

[49][50] The "What's New" section of the 2005 Factbook states: "The European Union continues to accrue more nation-like characteristics for itself and so a separate listing was deemed appropriate.

[54] On July 19, 2007, the Iles Eparses entry and redirects for each island were dropped due to the group becoming a district of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands in February.

[56][57] This was done in accordance with a May 21, 1992, decision by the U.S. not to recognize any of the former Yugoslav republics[58][59] as successor states to the recently dissolved SFRY.

[64] On March 14, 2002, an agreement was signed to transform the FRY into a loose state union called Serbia and Montenegro;[65] it took effect on February 4, 2003.

[23] On July 19, 2007, the entry for East Timor was renamed Timor-Leste following a decision of the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN).

[69] In June 2009, US National Public Radio (NPR), relying on information obtained from The World Factbook, put the number of Israeli Jews living in settlements in the West Bank and Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem at 250,000.

Chuck Holmes, foreign editor for NPR Digital, said, "I'm surprised and displeased, and it makes me wonder what other information is out-of-date or incorrect in the CIA World Factbook.

The government's own National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) contradicts the CIA's Factbook website, stating that three countries have "not adopted" the metric system is incorrect.