at sovereignty was
achieved and from which nation, empire, or trusteeship. For the other
countries, the date given may not represent "independence" in the
strict sense, but rather some significant nationhood event such as the
traditional founding date or the date of unification, federation,
confederation, establishment, fundamental change in the form of
government, or state succession. Dependent areas include the notation
"none" followed by the nature of their dependency status. Also see the
Terminology note.

Industrial production growth rate
This entry gives the annual percentage increase in industrial
production (includes manufacturing, mining, and construction).

Industries
This entry provides a rank ordering of industries starting with the
largest by value of annual output.

Infant mortality rate
This entry gives the number of deaths of infants under one year old in
a given year per 1,000 live births in the same year; included is the
total death rate, and deaths by sex, male and female. This rate is
often used as an indicator of the level of health in a country.

Inflation rate (consumer prices)
This entry furnishes the annual percent change in consumer prices
compared with the previous year's consumer prices.

International disputes
see Disputes - international

International organization participation
This entry lists in alphabetical order by abbreviation those
international organizations in which the subject country is a member or
participates in some other way.

International organizations
This information is presented in Appendix B: International
Organizations and Groups which includes the name, abbreviation, date
established, aim, and members by category.

Internet country code
This entry includes the two-letter codes maintained by the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in the ISO 3166
Alpha-2 list and used by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
to establish country-coded top-level domains (ccTLDs).

Internet hosts
This entry lists the number of Internet hosts available within a
country. An Internet host is a computer connected directly to the
Internet; normally an Internet Service Provider's (ISP) computer is a
host. Internet users may use either a hard-wired terminal, at an
institution with a mainframe computer connected directly to the
Internet, or may connect remotely by way of a modem via telephone line,
cable, or satellite to the Internet Service Provider's