Notes and Definitions
- People:
- This category includes the entries dealing with the characteristics of the people and their society.
- People - note:
- This entry includes miscellaneous demographic information of significance not included elsewhere.
- Personal Names - Capitalization:
-
The Factbook capitalizes the surname or family name of individuals for the convenience of our users who are faced with a world of different cultures and naming conventions. The need for capitalization, bold type, underlining, italics, or some other indicator of the individual's surname is apparent in the following examples:
- MAO Zedong, Fidel CASTRO Ruz, George W. BUSH, and TUNKU SALAHUDDIN Abdul Aziz Shah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Hisammuddin Alam Shah. By knowing the surname, a short form without all capital letters can be used with confidence as in President Castro, Chairman Mao, President Bush, or Sultan Tunku Salahuddin. The same system of capitalization is extended to the names of leaders with surnames that are not commonly used such as Queen ELIZABETH II.
- Personal Names - Spelling:
- The romanization of personal names in the Factbook normally follows the same transliteration system used by the US Board on Geographic Names for spelling place names. At times, however, a foreign leader expressly indicates a preference for, or the media or official documents regularly use, a romanized spelling that differs from the transliteration derived from the US Government standard. In such cases, the Factbook uses the alternative spelling.
- Personal Names - Titles:
-
The Factbook capitalizes any valid title (or short form of it) immediately preceding a person's name. A title standing alone is not capitalized. Examples:
- President PUTIN and President BUSH are chiefs of state. In Russia, the president is chief of state and the premier is the head of the government, while in the US, the president is both chief of state and head of government.
- Petroleum:
- See entry for "oil."
- Petroleum products:
- See entry for "oil."
- Pipelines:
- This entry gives the lengths and types of pipelines for transporting products like natural gas, crude oil, or petroleum products.
- Political parties and leaders:
- This entry includes a listing of significant political organizations and their leaders.
- Political pressure groups and leaders:
- This entry includes a listing of organizations with leaders involved in politics, but not standing for legislative election.
- Population:
- This entry gives an estimate from the US Bureau of the
Census based on statistics from population censuses, vital statistics registration
systems, or sample surveys pertaining to the recent past and on assumptions
about future trends. The total population presents one overall measure of the
potential impact of the country on the world and within its region. Note:
- starting with the 1993 Factbook, demographic estimates for some countries (mostly African) have explicitly taken into account the effects of the growing impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These countries are currently:
- The Bahamas, Benin, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
- starting with the 1993 Factbook, demographic estimates for some countries (mostly African) have explicitly taken into account the effects of the growing impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These countries are currently:
- Population below poverty line:
- National estimates of the percentage of the population lying below the poverty line are based on surveys of sub-groups, with the results weighted by the number of people in each group. Definitions of poverty vary considerably among nations. For example, rich nations generally employ more generous standards of poverty than poor nations.
- Population growth rate:
- The average annual percent change in the population, resulting from a surplus (or deficit) of births over deaths and the balance of migrants entering and leaving a country. The rate may be positive or negative. The growth rate is a factor in determining how great a burden would be imposed on a country by the changing needs of its people for infrastructure (e.g., schools, hospitals, housing, roads), resources (e.g., food, water, electricity), and jobs. Rapid population growth can be seen as threatening by neighboring countries.
- Ports and harbors:
- This entry lists the major ports and harbors selected on the basis of overall importance to each country. This is determined by evaluating a number of factors (e.g., dollar value of goods handled, gross tonnage, facilities, military significance).
- Public debt:
- This entry records the cumulatiive total of all government borrowings less repayments that are denominated in a country's home currency. Public debt should not be confused with external debt, which reflects the foreign currency liabilities of both the private and public sector and must be financed out of foreign exchange earnings.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright/IP Policy
| Terms of Service
| Help
NOTICE: We collect personal information on this site.
To learn more about how we use your information,
see our » Privacy Policy.