Pocket World in Figures 2006 (Economist) (Hardcover)

The first section of the book is on World Rankings. This covers important areas in geography, population, urban density, economics and living standards, financial and monetary issues, agriculture, business, transport, education levels, health and over social topics. You can find out here which country has the largest percentage of farmers (it isn't Hong Kong or Singapore), which country has the largest outstanding debt (think big -- big countries have big debts), and even which countries have the highest percentages of beer and wine drinkers, smokers, and music lovers (so you'll know where to party).

The second section of the book has an alphabetical listing of the countries of the world, with all of their vital stats spread across two pages -- demographics, economic stats, financial and trade data, exchange rates (generally), capital, geographic data, and more. The really suprising thing in this listing is that nowhere does it give the principle language of the country -- given the comprehensive nature of the data, one would think that a line or two regarding languages spoken would be a natural piece of data to include.

Also, this is not a complete listing of nations -- this includes only major nations, with a Eurocentric tilt. None of the Central American countries are included; there is a definite lack in Caribbean, African, and Asian countries also. However, to include all the nations would make this a jumbo-sized book, not a pocket guide. As it is, they have been selective, and while one might quibble with some of their choices, it is still a very handy and authoritative guide.

I have been told that Japanese have the highest life expectancy on countless occasions, yet this book corrects me; that honour goes to Andorra (83.5 compared to Japan's 81.6). People always claim that British people are alcoholics - in terms of $ per head spent on alcohol the top three are Finland ($458.7), UK ($901.8) and the dubious honour of most alcoholic country goes to Ireland - a whopping $1,335.5 per head! If you find this information interesting then this book is for you!

The second half of the book is completely different, and is basic data on each country. It is neither as complete a list nor as exhaustively detailed as the CIAs 'The World Factbook', but for lots of information such as population, capital and inflation it is more than adequate.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes information, or who has to deal with political or economic debate. Plus having a single source of information for each country is very useful when meeting new friends from around the world!