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  Guide to Country Comparisons
    


Country Comparisons are presorted lists of data from selected Factbook data fields. Country Comparisons are generally given in descending order - highest to lowest - such as Population and Area. The two exceptions are Unemployment Rate and Inflation Rate, which are in ascending - lowest to highest - order. Country Comparisons are available for the following 57 fields in six of the nine Factbook categories.

Geography

Area - total

People

Population
Population growth rate
Birth rate
Death rate
Net migration rate
Infant mortality rate
Life expectancy at birth - total
Total fertility rate
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS - deaths
Education expenditures

Economy

GDP (purchasing power parity)
GDP - real growth rate
GDP - per capita
Labor force
Unemployment rate
Inflation rate (consumer prices)
Central bank discount rate
Commercial bank prime lending rate
Stock of money
Stock of quasi money
Stock of domestic credit
Investment (gross fixed)
Public debt
Industrial production growth rate
Electricity - production
Electricity - consumption
Oil - production
Oil - consumption
Oil - exports
Oil - imports
Oil - proved reserves
Natural Gas - production
Natural Gas - consumption
Natural Gas - exports
Natural Gas - imports
Natural Gas - proved reserves
Current account balance
Exports
Imports
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold
Debt - external
Stock of direct foreign investment - at home
Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad
Market value of publicly traded shares

Communications

Telephones - main lines in use
Telephones - mobile cellular
Internet hosts
Internet users

Transportation

Airports
Railways - total
Roadways - total
Waterways
Merchant marine - total

Military

Military expenditures - percent of GDP

Factbook fields with Country Comparisons are easily identified with a small bar chart icon to the right of the data field title.

Not all Country Comparisons include the same number of entries because information for a particular field is not available for all countries. In addition, not all data fields are suitable for displaying as Country Comparisons, such as those containing textual information. Textual information is more readily viewed by clicking on the Field Listing icon next to the Data field title. The other icon next to the data field title provides the definition of the field.

All of the Country Comparisons can be downloaded as tab-delimited data files and can be opened in other applications such as spreadsheets and databases. To save a Country Comparisons page in a spreadsheet, first click on the ‘Download Datafile’ choice above the Country Comparisons page you selected; then, at the top of your browser window, click on 'File' and 'Save As'. After saving the file, open the spreadsheet, find the saved file, and 'Open' it.

This page was last updated on 20 March, 2009

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20 March, 200920 March, 200920 March, 2009