This free website is like Wikipedia meets the CIA

You may or may not have ever realized it, but for more than six decades, the CIA published an incredible resource called The World Factbook​. It was a free reference guide to all the countries on Earth, along with several non-state entities such as the European Union, and it was filled with all sorts of eye-opening info.

You might’ve noticed I’m referring to it in the past tense. That’s because after having maintained this project since 1962—first as a printed book and then in more recent...