Researching Countries  

The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities.

Fact sheets about US relations with each country. The fact sheet also contains useful links to further information about the country.

The U.S. Census Bureau conducts demographic, economic, and geographic studies of other countries and strengthens statistical development around the world through technical assistance, training, and software products. For over 60 years, the Census Bureau has performed international analytical work and assisted in the collection, processing, analysis, dissemination, and use of statistics with counterpart governments in over 100 countries.
SEE ALSO: The Reports tab.

Country and region factsheets that include facts about the land, people, history, government, political conditions, economy, and foreign relations of almost 240 countries and economies.

Country profiles provided by the Canadian government. The Centre is Canada's largest provider of intercultural and international training services for internationally-assigned government and private sector personnel.

The Office's country advice is full of useful information for countries throughout the world.

BBC's full profiles provide an instant guide to history, politics and economic background of countries and territories, and background on key institutions.
They also include audio and video clips from BBC archives.

NationMaster is a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. Using a form, you can generate maps and graphs on all kinds of statistics with ease.

This contains very general information, but is good for a quick overview.

This is one of the original directories created to keep track of information about different countries. Depending on the country, it can be useful to find further links to free information.