If you do a search for most countries in Google more often than not the CIA world 'fact' book appears in the top 10 results. Surprisingly the CIA world fact book seems quite neutral in its descriptions. Never the less, interesting how the CIA should have such an influence on the information of countries. An ancient .gov domain name, old permalinks, and tonnes of backlinks to the CIA pages.
I think, that they will be planted in those positions, government quangos some how always seem to get in the top positions. Thats how things are I guess
As you have mentioned, it is old, a lot of permalinks and tonnes of backlinks, this makes it popular to Google I guess.