Free access to geographic/industrial data? [closed]

Question

I'd like to expand on this question by asking: are there any free APIs that offer economic/demographic/etc data?

e.g.

• population sizes
• industrial production
• natural resources
• etc...

I'd like to be able to augment open geographic data with, effectively, a machine-readable version of The CIA World Factbook, albeit on a much finer level of detail (town-by-town rather than country-by-country).

Do you know of any good sources?

Answer 1

How about the CIA World Fact Book in XML format?

Answer 2

http://www.data.gov/catalog/geodata

Answer 3

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/population.html

The above link provides statistic files on the growth, distribution, and characteristics of the U.S. population in pdf and excel formats. Also, on the left hand side you'll find the remaining categories in your question.

The same source also provides minimal international data: http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGateway.php