What's new

Country information has been updated as of 4 September 2008.

- In the People category, two new fields provide information on education in terms of opportunity and resources. “School Life Expectancy” is an estimate of the total number of years of schooling (primary to tertiary) which a child can expect to receive, assuming that the prob ability of his or her being enrolled in school at any particular future age is equal to the current enrollment ratio at that age. “Education expenditures” provides an estimate of the public expenditure on education as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

- In the Geography category, two new fields focus on the increasingly vital resource of water: “Total renewable water resources” and “Freshwater withdrawal.”

- In the Economy category, three fields have been added that focus on capital stocks and investment. They are "Stock of direct foreign investment - at home," "Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad," and "Market value of publicly traded shares." Additionally, the data for GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP) has been rebased using new PPP conversion rates, benchmarked to the year 2005, which were released on 17 December 2007 by the International Comparison Program (ICP). The 2005 PPP data replace previous estimates, many from studies dating to 1993 or earlier. The preliminary ICP report provides estimates of internationally comparable price levels and the relative purchasing power of currencies for 146 countries. The 2005 benchmark revises downward the size of the world economy in PPP terms from the previous estimates, and changes the relative sizes of many of the world's economies.

- Revision of some individual country maps, first introduced in the 2001 edition, is continued in this edition. Several regional maps have also been updated to reflect boundary changes and place name spelling changes.