Government Information - Other Countries

General Sources

Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments: Produced by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and regularly updated.
Commanding Heights: Chronological summaries of economic, political, social, environmental, monetary, trade and legal events of countries since 1910.
Country Briefings: A website from The Economist that contains profiles for 60 countries. These provide factsheets, political outlooks and economic forecasts, brief economic statistics, and recent news articles from the magazine, some of which are only available through subscription. Information can be retrieved by subject, surveys, keyword and general categories such as books & arts, markets & data, and people.
Country Report and Country Profile (Economist Intelligence Unit): More in-depth economic, political and social analysis than the Country Briefings above, with coverage of roughly 200 countries.
Country Profiles from the BBC: Guides to history, politics and economic background of countries that also include audio and video clips from the BBC archives.
Flags of the World
GlobalEDGE: International Business Resource Desk: History, culture, government, economy and trade laws of 196 countries, plus a directory of international business resources.
Nations of the World: A wide ranging site with links to government and non-government sources including history, travel & education information.
Political Resources on the Net: Lists political sites available on the Internet sorted by country, with links to parties, organizations, governments, media and more from around the world.
The World Factbook: Provides concise country information including people, economy, government, military and transnational issues affecting the country.

Parliament

Inter-Parliamentary Union: Links to information about the parliaments in over 190 countries.

Legislation and Legal

CataLaw: Legal information worldwide by topic, and place.
Commonwealth and International Human Rights Case Law Databases: Over 2000 summaries of significant human rights decisions from Commonwealth courts and tribunals applying international human rights law.
Constitution Finder
Doing Business Law Library: Convenient gateway to business-related legislation worldwide, searchable by region, country or subject category.
Freedominfo.org: Documents, news and links related to freedom of information in more than 65 countries.
GlobalCourts: Links to Supreme Court decisions in 105 countries.
Global Legal Information Network (GLIN): A database of national laws from approximately 35 contributing countries and organizations that is accessed from a Web server of the U.S. Library of Congress. Provides searchable legal abstracts in English and some full texts of laws in the language of the contributing country.
Guide to Law Online: Nations of the World: Created by the Library of Congress, this site links to constitutions, executive, legislative and judicial branches, legal guides and general resources for over 200 countries.
LLRX.com Portals on Foreign/Comparative Law: This site by the Law Library Resources Xchange offers guides to electronic and print resources to legal systems from around the world. Many of the guides are structured to explain the process of law making in their respective countries.
NATLEX: A bibliographic database containing information about labour, social security and human rights legislation of roughly 180 countries.
Selected Foreign and International Resources for the Legal Researcher: A selective listing of current web sites that provide links to texts of laws, court decisions and international documents.
World Legal Information Institute: Courts & Case-law: A meta-index to court cases from international and national courts.

Catalogues

National Library Catalogues Worldwide: Provides links to the national library catalogues of over 95 countries

Statistics

Child Labour Statistics: Statistics and country reports from the International Labour Organization's Statistical Information & Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC).
Food and Agriculture Organization: Statistics on fisheries, agriculture, forestry, nutrition, food-aid, land use, etc. by country and region.
International Data Base (IDB): Population statistics at the world level, population clocks, country rankings by population, demographic country summaries and population pyramids.
International Labour Organization: Labour statistics for over 200 countries or territories.
International Monetary Fund: Has country specific monetary and financial information.
International Statistical Agencies: An A-Z list linking to the national statistical agencies of over 200 countries. Includes an entry for 'Inernational Organizations' pointing to websites such as the UN, OECD and the ILO.
Labour Force Surveys: Points to official labour force surveys from over 200 countries.
Nationmaster.com: Access is to the free portion of this collection of data for countries, regions and topics from a large number of internatonal agencies.
OECD: Statistical information for its 30 member countries plus others in the areas of economics, trade, social issues and science and innovation.
Penn World Tables: Provides economic statistics for 179 countries.
OFFSTATS: Free official statistics by country, region and topic, including some time series. Some data is available as text or spreadsheets.
Population Reference Bureau
UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund): Gives country specific information for child health, nutrition, education, maternal health and water and sanitation.
UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization Institute for Statistics): Country and regional statistics on education, science, technology, culture and communication available for different dates.
Voter Turnout from 1945 to date.: From the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, this site has statistics on parliamentary and presidential elections. It includes total votes, number of registered voters, voter turnout by gender, turnout percentage, voting age. It also has essays on voting, e.g. compulsory voting, voting by mail.
World Bank: Offers GNP, world development indicators (WDI), education, gender, health, nutrition & population(CHNP) statistics for countries, country groups and country classifications.
World Health Organization: Links to health and health-related statistical information available by country and date.
World Trade Organization -Trade statistics: International trade statistics including by country and region.

July 15, 2011
Aspi Balsara