of
preparation. Names and/or boundaries may have changed subsequently.

Country name
This entry includes all forms of the country's name approved by the US
Board on Geographic Names (Italy is used as an example): conventional
long form (Italian Republic), conventional short form (Italy), local
long form (Repubblica Italiana), local short form (Italia), former
(Kingdom of Italy), as well as the abbreviation. Also see the
Terminology note.

Currency
This entry identifies the national medium of exchange and its basic
subunit.

Currency code
This entry gives the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) 4217 alphabetic currency code for each country.

Data codes
This information is presented in Appendix D: Cross-Reference List of
Country Data Codes and Appendix E: Cross-Reference List of
Hydrographic Data Codes. This appendix includes the US Government
approved Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) codes, the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) codes, and
Internet codes for land entities. The appendix also includes the
International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) codes, Aeronautical Chart
and Information Center (ACIC; now a part of the National Imagery and
Mapping Agency or NIMA) codes, and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
codes for hydrographic entities. The US Government has not yet approved
a standard for hydrographic data codes similar to the FIPS 10-4
standard for country data codes.

Date of information
In general, information available as of 1 January 2001, was used in the
preparation of this edition.

Death rate
This entry gives the average annual number of deaths during a year per
1,000 population at midyear; also known as crude death rate. The death
rate, while only a rough indicator of the mortality situation in a
country, accurately indicates the current mortality impact on
population growth. This indicator is significantly affected by age
distribution, and most countries will eventually show a rise in the
overall death rate, in spite of continued decline in mortality at all
ages, as declining fertility results in an aging population.

Debt - external
This entry gives the total amount of public foreign financial
obligations.

Dependency status
This entry describes the formal relationship between a particular
nonindependent entity and an independent state.

Dependent areas
This entry contains an alphabetical listing of all nonindependent
entities as