This section presents statistics for the world as a whole and for many countries on a comparative basis with the United States. Data are shown for population, births and deaths, social and industrial indicators, finances, agriculture, communication, and military affairs.

Statistics of the individual nations may be found primarily in official national publications, generally in the form of yearbooks, issued by most of the nationsat various intervals in their own national languages and expressed in their own or customary units of measure. (For a listing of selected publications, see Guide to Sources.) For handier reference, especially for international comparisons, theUnited Nations Statistics Division compiles data as submitted by member countries and issuesa number of international summary publications, generally in English and French. Among these are the Statistical Yearbook; the Demographic Yearbook; International TradeStatisticsYearbook; National Accounts Statistics: Main Aggregates and Detailed Tables;Population and Vital Statistics Reports(quarterly); theMonthly Bulletin of Statistics; and the Energy Statistics Yearbook. Specialized agencies of the United Nations also issue international summary publications on agricultural, labor, health, andeducation statistics. Among these are theProduction Yearbookand Trade Yearbook issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization, theYearbook of LabourStatistics issued by the International Labour Office,World Health Statisticsissued by the World Health Organization,and the Statistical Yearbook issued by the Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

The U.S. Census Bureau presents estimates and projections of basic demographic measures for countries and regions of the world in theWorld Population Reports(WP) series. The International Population Reports (Series IPC), andInternational Briefs(Series IB) also present population figures for many foreign countries. Detailed population statistics are also available from theCensus Bureau’s International Data Base.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) also compile data on international statistics. The IMFpublishes a series of reports relating to financial data. These include InternationalFinancial Statistics, Direction of Trade, and Balance of Payments Yearbook,published in English, French, and Spanish. The OECD publishes a vast number of statistical publications invarious fields such as economics, health, and education. Among theseareOECD in Figures, Main Economic Indicators, Economic Outlook, National Accounts, Labour Force Statistics, OECD Health Data, andEducation at a Glance.

Statistical coverage, country names, and classifications-Problems of space and availability of data limit the number of countries and the extent of statistical coverage shown. The list of countries included and the spelling of country names are based almost entirely on the list of sovereign nations, dependencies, and areas of special sovereignty provided by the U.S. Department of State.

In recent years, several important changes took place in the status of the world’s nations. In 1990, a unified Germany wasformed from the Federal Republic of Germany (West) and the German Democratic Republic (East). The Republic of Yemen was formed by union of the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. Also in 1990, Namibia, once a  United Nations mandate, realized its independencefrom South Africa.

In 1991, the Soviet Union broke up into 15 independent countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

In 1992, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia dissolved; none of the successor states has been recognized as itscontinuation. The United States recognizes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, and The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as independent countries. Serbia and Montenegro have asserted the formation of a joint independent state, but this entity has not been formally recognized as a state by the United States.

On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia was succeeded by two independent countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Eritrea announced its independence from Ethiopia in April 1993 and was subsequently recognized as an independent nation by the United States.

The population estimates and projections used in Tables 1350, 1352, 1353 and 1355 were prepared by the Census Bureau. Foreach country, the data on population, by age and sex, fertility, mortality, and international migration were evaluated and, where necessary, adjusted for inconsistencies and errors in the data. In most instances, comprehensive projections were made by the component method, resulting in distributions of the population by age and sex and requiring an assessment of probable future trends of fertility, mortality, and international migration.

Economic associations-The Organization for European Economic Co-operation(OEEC), a regional grouping of Western European countries established in 1948 for the purpose of harmonizing national economic policies and conditions, was succeeded on September 30, 1961, by the Organization for Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD). The member nations of the OECD are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Quality and comparability of the data-The quality and comparability of the data presented here are affected by a number of factors:

(1) The year for which data are presented may not be the same for all subjects for a particular country or for a given subject for different countries, though the data shown are the most recent available. All such variations have been noted. The data shown are for calendar years except as otherwise specified.

(2) The bases, methods of estimating, methods of data collection, extent of coverage, precision of definition, scope of territory, and margins of error may vary for different items within a particular country, and for like items for different countries. Footnotes and headnotes to the tables give a few of the major time periods and coverage qualifications attached to the figures; considerably more detail is presented in the source publications. Many of the measures shown are, at best, merely rough indicators of magnitude.

(3) Figures shown in this section for the United States may not always agree with figures shown in the preceding sections. Disagreements may be attributable to the use of differing original sources, a difference in the definition of geographic limits (the 50 states, conterminous United States only, or the United States including certain outlying areas and possessions), or to possible adjustments made in the United States figures by other sources in order to make them more comparable with figures from other countries.

International comparisons of national accounts data-In order to compare national accounts data for different countries, it is necessary to convert each country’s data into a common unit of currency, usually the U.S. dollar. The market exchangerates which are often used in converting national currencies do not necessarily reflect the relative purchasing power in the various countries. It is necessary that the goods and services produced in different countries be valued consistently if the differences observed are meant to reflect real differences in the volumes of goods and services produced. The use of purchasing power parities (see Table 1365) instead of exchange rates is intended to achieve this objective.

The method used to present the data shown in Table 1365 is to construct volume measures directly by revaluing the goods and services sold in different countries at a common set of internationalprices. By dividing the ratio of the gross domestic products of two countries expressed in their own national currencies by the corresponding ratio calculated at constant international prices, it is possible to derive the implied purchasing power parity (PPP) between the two currencies concerned. PPPs show how many units of currencyare needed in one country to buy the same amount of goods and services which oneunit of currency will buy in the other country. For further information, see NationalAccounts, Main Aggregates, Volume I, issued annually by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France.

International Standard Industrial Classification-The original version of the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) was adopted in 1948. Wide use has been made both nationally and internationally in classifying data according to kind of economic activity in the fields of production, employment, national income, and other economic statistics. A number of countries have utilized the ISIC as the basis for devising their industrial classification scheme.

Substantial comparability has been attained between the industrial classifications of many other countries, including the United States and the ISIC by ensuring, as far as practicable, that the categories at detailed levels of classification in national schemesfitted into only one category ofthe ISIC. For more detail, see the Census Bureau’s,The International Standard Industrial Classification and the U.S. Standard Industrial Classification, Technical Paper No. 14, and the text of Section 27, Manufactures. The United Nations, the International Labour Organization, the Food andAgriculture Organization, and other internationalbodies have utilized the ISIC in publishing and analyzing statistical data. Revisions of the ISIC were issued in 1958, 1968, and 1989.

International maps-A series of regionalworld maps is provided on pages 814-820. References are included in Table 1352 for easy location of individual countries on the maps. The Robinson map projection is used for this series of maps. A map projection is used to portray all or part of the round Earth on a flat surface, but this cannot be done without some distortion. Forthe Robinson projection, distortion is very low along the Equator and within 45 degrees of the center but is greatest near the poles. For additional information on map projections and maps, please contact the Earth Science Information Center, U.S. Geological Survey, 507 National Center, Reston, VA 22092.