Template:CIA World Factbook
This article incorporates public domain material from The World Factbook (2025 ed.). CIA.
Template documentation[view] [edit] [history] [purge]This template attributes content to The World Factbook, which is a publication of the Central Intelligence Agency. This is a public domain publication of the U.S. government. This template will include the articles which transclude it into the hidden category Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the World Factbook.
The template wraps around the template {{cite web}} and can take all of the parameters that {{cite web}} takes however some parameters are pre-set and others cause that which is displayed to appear differently from the usual presentation {{cite web}}.
Error checking of standard parameters is carried out by template {{cite web}}—an incorrect value passed in to this template will cause {{cite web}} to issue a warning.
Parameters
Pre-set non-standard parameters:
agency=CIA—used in by the parameterWorkpolicy=a URL to the statement that the World Factbook is in the public domain
Pre-set standard parameters:
url=– this links to the page in the World Factbook. It is automatically generated byarticleandsectionif those parameters are set.work=—pre-set to World Factbookedition=—pre-set to the current year if a link to the CIA archive is generated. Can be overwritten.
Editor set parameters:
article=Country Name—this must appear as it does in the CIA World Factbook for example "United Kingdom" not "UK" or "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". This is necessary because the template uses the country name as part of the URL.section=Section Name—this must appear as it does in the CIA World Factbook and can only be a top level section name (any other name links to the top of thearticlepage). If parameterarticleis not set then the link is to the top of the CIA World Factbook home page.date=date the Factbook page was updated—although not compulsory it is usually necessary because the CIA World Factbook is regularly updated. If this parameter is set to a date earlier than the current year (2026) less one then a link to the appropriate archive is appended to the reference.year=year the Factbook page was updated—see date entry above. Usuallyyearanddateparameters ought not to appear together in this template. If they do then they must have the same year entry.access-date=retrieval date—the date data was extracted.
With the above exceptions other parameters that are accepted by {{cite web}} may be used. This includes the parameters first, last and ref which allows this template to be linked to from short inline citations using the {{harv}} family of templates.
Examples
No parameters set:
- {{CIA World Factbook}} results in: This article incorporates public domain material from The World Factbook (2025 ed.). CIA.
date set:
- {{CIA World Factbook |date=2026}} results in: This article incorporates public domain material from The World Factbook (2026 ed.). CIA. 2026.
date set to an earlier year (note the postscript archive for the year 2004):
- {{CIA World Factbook |date=2004}} results in: This article incorporates public domain material from The World Factbook (2004 ed.). CIA. 2004.
article set (although this works, as explained above, it is better to set the date as well to future proof the information):
- {{CIA World Factbook |article=Burkina Faso}} results in: This article incorporates public domain material from "Burkina Faso". The World Factbook (2025 ed.). CIA.
year and article set:
- {{CIA World Factbook |year=2026 |article=Angola}} results in: This article incorporates public domain material from "Angola". The World Factbook (2026 ed.). CIA. 2026.
- {{CIA World Factbook |year=2015 |article=Angola}} results in: This article incorporates public domain material from "Angola". The World Factbook (2015 ed.). CIA. 2015.
date, article and section set:
- {{CIA World Factbook |date=2026 |article=United Kingdom |section=Economy}} results in: This article incorporates public domain material from "United Kingdom § Economy". The World Factbook (2026 ed.). CIA. 2026.
access-date article set (although this works, as explained above, it is better to set the date as well to future proof the information):
- {{CIA World Factbook |access-date=September 21, 2018 |article=Germany}} results in: This article incorporates public domain material from "Germany". The World Factbook (2018 ed.). CIA. Retrieved September 21, 2018.
date, access-date and article set:
- {{CIA World Factbook |date=2019 |access-date=February 22, 2026 |article=Germany}} results in: This article incorporates public domain material from "Germany". The World Factbook (2019 ed.). CIA. 2019. Retrieved February 22, 2026.
last, first, date, and article set:
- {{CIA World Factbook |last=Smith |first=John |date=2018 |article=Angola}} results in: This article incorporates public domain material from Smith, John (2018). "Angola". The World Factbook (2018 ed.). CIA.