DOI: 10.7910/dvn/6wfvzb
title: 2023 Cartographic Boundaries by US Census Block Group

description: &lt;h1 id="blockgroupcartographics"&gt;blockgroupcartographics&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;hr&gt;
&lt;h2 id="opportunity"&gt;Opportunity&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;hr&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This publication re-shares the TIGER/Line dataset from the US Census Bureau to supplement the other datasets available in Open Environment&#39;s Block Group Dataverse. This share is valuable for two reasons. First, the original publication uses geodatabase file format, which requires GIS software to open and interpret. This publication uses CSV formats for access with simpler tools. Second, many models based on the U.S. Census data benefit from a measure of population density. That is, population counts divided by the land area of the geography. In this case, the ALAND variable is only available from TIGER/Line. The &lt;strong&gt;2023blockgroupdemographics&lt;/strong&gt; dataset, then, is dependent upon this publication for land and water area within block group.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="dataset-details"&gt;Dataset details&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;--
The dataset offers 242,336 rows, one for each block group.
 |Variable|Description|
 |---|---|&lt;br&gt; |GEO_ID|The fully qualified block group geographic identifier|
 |STATEFP|US State FIPS code, 2 digits|
 |COUNTYFP|US County FIPS code, 3 digits|
 |TRACTCE|Census tract identifier, 6 digits|
 |BLKGRPCE|Census block group identifier, 6 digits|
 |GEOID|The block group GEO ID starting with the state code|
 |GEOIDFQ|The block group GEO ID starting with the country codes|
 |NAMELSAD|Legal/statistical area description|
 |MTFCC|5 digit MAF/TIGER Feature Class Code, see &lt;a href="https://www.census.gov/library/reference/code-lists/mt-feature-class-codes.html|"&gt;https://www.census.gov/library/reference/code-lists/mt-feature-class-codes.html|&lt;/a&gt;
 |FUNCSTAT|Functional status code, see &lt;a href="https://www.census.gov/library/reference/code-lists/functional-status-codes.html|"&gt;https://www.census.gov/library/reference/code-lists/functional-status-codes.html|&lt;/a&gt;
 |ALAND|Land area of the block group geography|
 |AWATER|Water area of the block group geography|
 |INTPTLAT|Latitude of the block group&#39;s centroid|
 |INTPTLON|Longitude of the block group&#39;s centroid|
 |geometry|Provides the point and polygon shape as a text string.|&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="additional-caveats"&gt;Additional Caveats&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It is import to note, analytically, the following:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The Census revises Block Group shapes with each decennial census survey. As a result, merging datasets from different decades will result in data loss. Shapes that have the same GEO_ID may have different land area. New geographies and geographies no longer available can be expected then. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;All questions or feedback is most welcome by email at support@openenvironments.com&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id="citations"&gt;Citations&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;U.S. Census Bureau, “TIGER/Line Shapefiles&quot;, &lt;a href="https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.html"&gt;https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.html&lt;/a&gt;, 2023&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;U.S. Census Bureau, “TIGER/Line Shapefiles FTP Archives&quot;,&lt;a href="https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2023/BG/"&gt;https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2023/BG/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Python Package Index - PyPI. Python Software Foundation. &quot;A simple wrapper for the United States Census Bureau’s API.&quot;. Retrieved from &lt;a href="https://pypi.org/project/census/"&gt;https://pypi.org/project/census/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Kelsey Jordahl, Joris Van den Bossche, Martin Fleischmann, Jacob Wasserman, James McBride, Jeffrey Gerard, … François Leblanc. (2020, July 15). geopandas/geopandas: v0.8.1 (Version v0.8.1). Zenodo. &lt;a href="http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3946761"&gt;http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3946761&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;