“Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities. The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February this year, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified Secret. The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.” Wikileaks allows readers to view these documents via several tools: Browse by release date; Browse by creation date (1966-2010); Browse by Country/Embassy of origin; Browse by tag; Browse by document classification;

• New York Times: “A cache of confidential diplomatic cables amounts to a secret chronicle of the United States’ relations with the world in an age of war and terrorism…The New York Times and a number of publications in Europe [see also coverage by Spiegel Online and El Pais] and were given access to the material several weeks ago and agreed to begin publication of articles based on the cables Sunday online. The Times believes that the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match.”
• Guardian UK Series: US embassy cables: the documents – browse the database – Use our interactive guide to discover what has been revealed in the leak of 250,000 US diplomatic cables. Mouse over the map below to find stories and original documents by country, subject or people. See also the Guardian Datablog: download the key data, and see how it breaks down.”
• See also US embassy cables: global coverage