US Census Data

US Census Data

The US Census Bureau publishes data in two parts- spatial (shapefile) and attribute (table). Data can either be downloaded manually or through the API.

The Census has two forms of collecting data: the decennial survey and the American Community Survey (ACS), which replaced the long-form survey, and is released in 1, 3, or 5 year increments depending on the population of a given area. Unlike the decennial survey, the ACS data is based on estimates rather than an exact count.

Spatial Data

Census data can be downloaded as various geographic units. Census blocks are the smallest possible geographic unit, and do not contain as much information about socioeconomic factors as the larger units for privacy reason. Spatial data from the Census are part of the TIGER (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) system.

Census Enumeration Units. Credit: Analyzing Census Data by Kyle Walker

Attribute Data

Working with Census Data

Handouts for downloading, cleaning, and joining census data in the desktop GIS software can be found below. If working with census data in R, Kyle Walker’s free textbook and tidycensus package are a fantastic resource: https://walker-data.com/census-r/

ArcGIS Pro Download Guide:

QGIS Download Guide: