Many improvements have been made to the information. Latitude and longitude references have been added, much more information on capital cities and massive updating of industrial information and population figures. The previous edition was published in 1986.

The Statesman's Year-Book Historical Companion is a companion to The Statesman's Year-Book to celebrate 125 years of annual publication, giving histories of countries, provinces and states from the 19th century and also acting as a name-change gazetteer.