The 2008 CIA World Factbook. United States. Central Intelligence Agency

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ in this same entry.

      Technical

      Does The World Factbook comply with Section 508 of the

       Rehabilitation Act regarding accessibility of Web pages?

      The World Factbook home page has a link entitled "Text/Low Bandwidth Version." The country data in the text version is fully accessible. We believe The World Factbook is compliant with the Section 508 law in both fact and spirit. If you are experiencing difficulty, please use our comment form to provide us details of the specific problem you are experiencing and the assistive software and/or hardware that you are using so that we can work with our technical support staff to find and implement a solution. We welcome visitors' suggestions to improve accessibility of The World Factbook and the CIA Web site.

      I am using the Factbook online and it is not working. What is wrong?

      Hundreds of "Factbook" look-alikes exist on the Internet. The

       Factbook site at: www.cia.gov is the only official site.

      When I attempt to download a PDF (Portable Document Format) map file (or some other map) the file has no image. Can you fix this?

      Some of the files on The World Factbook Web site are large and could take several minutes to download on a dial-up connection. The screen might be blank during the download process.

      When I open a map on The World Factbook site, it is fuzzy or granular, or too big or too small. Why?

      Adjusting the resolution setting on your monitor should correct this problem.

      Is The World Factbook country data available in machine-readable format? All I can find is HTML, but I'm looking for simple tabular data.

      The Factbook Web site now features "Rank Order" pages for selected Factbook entries. "Rank Order" pages are available for those data fields identified with a small bar chart icon located next to the title of the data entry. In addition, all of the "Rank Order" pages can be downloaded as tab-delimited data files that can be opened in other applications such as spreadsheets and databases.

      =====================================================================

      @Afghanistan

      Introduction

       Afghanistan

      Background:

      Ahmad Shah DURRANI unified the Pashtun tribes and founded Afghanistan in 1747. The country served as a buffer between the British and Russian empires until it won independence from notional British control in 1919. A brief experiment in democracy ended in a 1973 coup and a 1978 Communist counter-coup. The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the tottering Afghan Communist regime, touching off a long and destructive war. The USSR withdrew in 1989 under relentless pressure by internationally supported anti-Communist mujahedin rebels. A series of subsequent civil wars saw Kabul finally fall in 1996 to the Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement that emerged in 1994 to end the country's civil war and anarchy. Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, a US, Allied, and anti-Taliban Northern Alliance military action toppled the Taliban for sheltering Osama BIN LADIN. The UN-sponsored Bonn Conference in 2001 established a process for political reconstruction that included the adoption of a new constitution, a presidential election in 2004, and National Assembly elections in 2005. In December 2004, Hamid KARZAI became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan and the National Assembly was inaugurated the following December. Despite gains toward building a stable central government, a resurgent Taliban and continuing provincial instability - particularly in the south and the east - remain serious challenges for the Afghan Government.

      Geography

       Afghanistan

      Location:

      Southern Asia, north and west of Pakistan, east of Iran

      Geographic coordinates:

      33 00 N, 65 00 E

      Map references:

      Asia

      Area:

      total: 647,500 sq km land: 647,500 sq km water: 0 sq km

      Area - comparative:

      slightly smaller than Texas

      Land boundaries:

      total: 5,529 km border countries: China 76 km, Iran 936 km, Pakistan 2,430 km, Tajikistan 1,206 km, Turkmenistan 744 km, Uzbekistan 137 km

      Coastline:

      0 km (landlocked)

      Maritime claims:

      none (landlocked)

      Climate:

      arid to semiarid; cold winters and hot summers

      Terrain:

      mostly rugged mountains; plains in north and southwest

      Elevation extremes:

      lowest point: Amu Darya 258 m highest point: Nowshak 7,485 m

      Natural resources:

      natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semiprecious stones

      Land use:

      arable land: 12.13% permanent crops: 0.21% other: 87.66% (2005)

      Irrigated land:

      27,200 sq km (2003)

      Total renewable water resources:

      65 cu km (1997)

      Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural):

      total: 23.26 cu km/yr (2%/0%/98%) per capita: 779 cu m/yr (2000)

      Natural hazards:

      damaging earthquakes occur in Hindu Kush mountains; flooding; droughts

      Environment - current issues:

      limited natural fresh water resources; inadequate supplies of potable water; soil degradation; overgrazing; deforestation (much of the remaining forests are being cut down for fuel and building materials); desertification; air and water pollution

      Environment - international agreements:

      party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection signed, but not ratified: Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Life Conservation

      Geography - note:

      landlocked; the Hindu Kush mountains that run northeast to southwest divide the northern provinces from the rest of the country; the highest peaks are in the northern СКАЧАТЬ