Marketing

The State Department's Background Notes may be the best starting place, as they provide very current condensed overviews, some detail, and links to existing Country Studies.

Provides an overview of each countries' history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, and military. The Factbook also generates country comparisons.

The Library of Congress' Country Studies cover the same points as the World Factbook but in more detail. Originally published between 1988 and 1998, these ran between 100-200 pages in print; these editions have been converted to html and are fully available online. Updated, online editions are being prepared, but be aware that old editions may be all that are available for some countries.

Data on household consumption in countries round the world. Choose a country--from Afghanistan to Zambia--to see data for all consumption categories, or choose a sector to see all countries' expenditures in particular areas. Sectors include food and drink, shoes and clothing, housing, energy, education, healthcare, and more.

From the World Bank, Enterprise Surveys are firm-level surveys of a representative sample of an economy’s private sector. The surveys cover a broad range of business environment topics including access to finance, corruption, infrastructure, crime, competition, and performance measures.