Data is available for over 250 countries. For each country, map and flag, geographic, population, government, economic, transportation, communication, and defense information is provided for the latest year available.
Users can browse the whole country list, by continent, or by subject.
There are also fifteen individual reference maps and eight appendices. The types of resources described in GILS include databases, hotlines, clearinghouses, and catalogs of publications. The GILS are descriptions of resources which inform users what information is available, where it is located, and how it can be accessed. In cases in which the information resource exists in electronic form, a direct link to that resource from the GILS record will usually be available. GILS is searchable by keywords, or by specific fields such as title, author, etc., and is also available in a browse format.