finding census data using american factfinder

Finding and Mapping Census Data

Kathleen Fear, Data LibrarianBlair Tinker, GIS Research Specialist

Part 1: Getting the data (American FactFinder)

Part 2: Mapping (ArcGIS)

http://factfinder.census.gov

What it’s got…• American Community

Survey• American Housing Survey• Annual Economic Surveys:

– Annual Survey of Manufactures

– Business Patterns– Nonemployer Statistics

• Annual Surveys of Governments

• Census of Governments• Commodity Flow Survey• 2000 / 2010 Decennial

Census• Economic Census• EEO Tabulation• Population Estimates

Program• Puerto Rico Community

Survey

I want to find out the percent of households with kids under 18 in

each zip code in Monroe County in 2010.

Census geographies: a brief diversion

A line connecting two geographies indicates a hierarchical relationship between them, e.g. states are comprised of counties.

The absence of a line means there is no reliable relationship between two geographies, e.g. Kansas City is in MO and KS.

Census tract: subdivisions of a county or county equivalent, optimally ~4,000 people.

Block group: subdivision of census tracts, between 600 and 3,000 people.

Census block: smallest geographical area used by the Census Bureau. Not based on population; bounded by visible boundaries (roads, rivers) and non-visible boundaries (property lines, town lines).

See http://www.census.gov/geo/reference/webatlas/ for more details.

Zip codes vs. ZCTAs

• ZCTAs only have a relationship with Nation and Census block

• Zip codes and ZCTAs are almost identical

From: Grubesic, T. H. (2008). Zip codes and spatial analysis: Problems and prospects. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 42(2), 129–149. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2006.09.001

I want to find out the percent of households with kids under 18 in

each zip code ZCTA in Monroe County in 2010.

“Within state”: New York

“Within county”: Monroe

“Geographic type”: ZIP Code/ZTCA

Census vs. ACS: another brief diversion

• Census products:– Summary File 1 (SF1), Summary File 2 (SF2): Short form

• Age, sex, race, Hispanic/Latino origin, households, families, housing units, owner/renter status• 100% sample

– Summary File 3 (SF3), Summary File 4 (SF4): Long form• Income, education, occupation, ancestry, disability, foreign

birth, commuting, etc.• 19 million households (about 1 in 6)

Census vs. ACS: another brief diversion

• Census products:– Summary File 1 (SF1), Summary File 2 (SF2): Short form

• Age, sex, race, Hispanic/Latino origin, households, families, housing units, owner/renter status• 100% sample

– Summary File 3 (SF3), Summary File 4 (SF4): Long form• Income, education, occupation, ancestry, disability, foreign

birth, commuting, etc.• 19 million households (about 1 in 6)

Long form eliminated in 2010

Census American Community Survey

Every 10 years Annual

Count of population Demographic survey

Snapshot of a point in time Average of characteristics over time (1, 3 or 5 years)

SF1: Data for individual census blocks

SF3 (2000): Data for block groups

5-year estimates: Data for block groups

3-year and 1-year estimates: Data for census tracks

This will embed any footnotes directly in the data

This puts footnotes in a separate file

This adds a header row with descriptive variable names

README fileAnnotations fileMetadata (variable names)The actual data!Variable-level footnotes

finding census data using american factfinder

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