2015 Cartographic Boundary File, State-County-Census Tract for Pennsylvania, 1:500,000

• Identification_Information
• Data_Quality_Information
• Spatial_Data_Organization_Information
• Spatial_Reference_Information
• Entity_and_Attribute_Information
• Distribution_Information
• Distributor 1
• Distribution_Information
• Metadata_Reference_Information

Identification_Information:

Citation:

Citation_Information:

Originator:U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division, Cartographic Products and Services Branch

Publication_Date:201603

Title:

2015 Cartographic Boundary File, State-County-Census Tract for Pennsylvania, 1:500,000

Geospatial_Data_Presentation_Form:vector digital data

Series_Information:

Series_Name:Cartographic Boundary Files

Issue_Identification:2015

Online_Linkage: http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2015/shp/cb_2015_42_tract_500k.zip

Description:

Abstract:

The 2015 cartographic boundary shapefiles are simplified representations of selected geographic areas from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). These boundary files are specifically designed for small-scale thematic mapping. When possible, generalization is performed with the intent to maintain the hierarchical relationships among geographies and to maintain the alignment of geographies within a file set for a given year. Geographic areas may not align with the same areas from another year. Some geographies are available as nation-based files while others are available only as state-based files.

Census tracts are small, relatively permanent statistical subdivisions of a county or equivalent entity, and were defined by local participants as part of the 2010 Census Participant Statistical Areas Program.  The Census Bureau delineated the census tracts in situations where no local participant existed or where all the potential participants declined to participate.  The primary purpose of census tracts is to provide a stable set of geographic units for the presentation of census data and comparison back to previous decennial censuses.  Census tracts generally have a population size between 1,200 and 8,000 people, with an optimum size of 4,000 people.  When first delineated, census tracts were designed to be homogeneous with respect to population characteristics, economic status, and living conditions.  The spatial size of census tracts varies widely depending on the density of settlement.  Physical changes in street patterns caused by highway construction, new development, and so forth, may require boundary revisions.  In addition, census tracts occasionally are split due to population growth, or combined as a result of substantial population decline.  Census tract boundaries generally follow visible and identifiable features.  They may follow legal boundaries such as minor civil division (MCD) or incorporated place boundaries in some states and situations to allow for census tract-to-governmental unit relationships where the governmental boundaries tend to remain unchanged between censuses.  State and county boundaries always are census tract boundaries in the standard census geographic hierarchy.  In a few rare instances, a census tract may consist of noncontiguous areas.  These noncontiguous areas may occur where the census tracts are coextensive with all or parts of legal entities that are themselves noncontiguous.  For the 2010 Census, the census tract code range of 9400 through 9499 was enforced for census tracts that include a majority American Indian population according to Census 2000 data and/or their area was primarily covered by federally recognized American Indian reservations and/or off-reservation trust lands; the code range 9800 through 9899 was enforced for those census tracts that contained little or no population and represented a relatively large special land use area such as a National Park, military installation, or a business/industrial park; and the code range 9900 through 9998 was enforced for those census tracts that contained only water area, no land area.

Purpose:

These files were specifically created to support small-scale thematic mapping. To improve the appearance of shapes at small scales, areas are represented with fewer vertices than detailed TIGER/Line Shapefiles. Cartographic boundary files take up less disk space than their ungeneralized counterparts. Cartographic boundary files take less time to render on screen than TIGER/Line Shapefiles. You can join this file with table data downloaded from American FactFinder by using the AFFGEOID field in the cartographic boundary file. If detailed boundaries are required, please use the TIGER/Line Shapefiles instead of the generalized cartographic boundary files.

Time_Period_of_Content:

Time_Period_Information:

Range_of_Dates/Times:

Beginning_Date:201603

Ending_Date:201603

Currentness_Reference:

publication date

Status:

Progress:Complete

Maintenance_and_Update_Frequency:None planned. No changes or updates will be made to this version of the cartographic boundary files. New versions of the cartographic boundary files will be produced on an annual release schedule. Types of geography released may vary from year to year.

Spatial_Domain:

Bounding_Coordinates:

West_Bounding_Coordinate:-80.519891

East_Bounding_Coordinate:-74.689516

North_Bounding_Coordinate:42.26986

South_Bounding_Coordinate:39.7198

Keywords:

Theme:

Theme_Keyword_Thesaurus:ISO 19115 Topic Categories

Theme_Keyword:Boundaries

Theme:

Theme_Keyword_Thesaurus:None

Theme_Keyword:2015

Theme_Keyword:SHP

Theme_Keyword:Cartographic Boundary

Theme_Keyword:Census Tract

Theme_Keyword:County

Theme_Keyword:Generalized

Theme_Keyword:State

Place:

Place_Keyword_Thesaurus:ANSI INCITS 38:2009 (Formerly FIPS 5-2), ANSI INCITS 31:2009 (Formerly FIPS 6-4),ANSI INCITS 454:2009 (Formerly FIPS 8-6), ANSI INCITS 455:2009(Formerly FIPS 9-1), ANSI INCITS 446:2008 (Geographic Names Information System (GNIS))

Place_Keyword:Pennsylvania

Place_Keyword:PA

Access_Constraints:None

Use_Constraints:

The intended display scale for this file is 1:500,000.  This file should not be displayed at scales larger than 1:500,000.

These products are free to use in a product or publication, however acknowledgement must be given to the U.S. Census Bureau as the source.  The boundary information is for visual display at appropriate small scales only.  Cartographic boundary files should not be used for geographic analysis including area or perimeter calculation.  Files should not be used for geocoding addresses.  Files should not be used for determining precise geographic area relationships.

Point_of_Contact:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Organization_Primary:

Contact_Organization:U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division, Geographic Customer Services Branch

Contact_Address:

Address_Type:mailing

Address:

4600 Silver Hill Road

City:Washington

State_or_Province:DC

Postal_Code:20233-7400

Country:United States

Contact_Voice_Telephone:301.763.1128

Contact_Facsimile_Telephone:301.763.4710

Contact_Electronic_Mail_Address:geo.geography@census.gov

Data_Quality_Information:

Attribute_Accuracy:

Attribute_Accuracy_Report:

Accurate against American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Publication INCITS 446-2008 (Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)) at the 100% level for the codes and base names present in the file.  The remaining attribute information has been examined but has not been fully tested for accuracy.

Logical_Consistency_Report:

The Census Bureau performed automated tests to ensure logical consistency of the source database.  Segments making up the outer and inner boundaries of a polygon tie end-to-end to completely enclose the area.  All polygons were tested for closure. The Census Bureau uses its internally developed geographic update system to enhance and modify spatial and attribute data in the Census MAF/TIGER database.  Standard geographic codes, such as INCITS (formerly FIPS) codes for states, counties, municipalities, county subdivisions, places, American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian areas, and congressional districts are used when encoding spatial entities.  The Census Bureau performed spatial data tests for logical consistency of the codes during the compilation of the original Census MAF/TIGER database files.  Feature attribute information has been examined but has not been fully tested for consistency.

For the cartographic boundary files, the Point and Vector Object Count for the G-polygon SDTS Point and Vector Object Type reflects the number of records in the file's data table.  For multi-polygon features, only one attribute record exists for each multi-polygon rather than one attribute record per individual G-polygon component of the multi-polygon feature.  Cartographic Boundary File multi-polygons are an exception to the G-polygon object type classification.  Therefore, when multi-polygons exist in a file, the object count will be less than the actual number of G-polygons.

Completeness_Report:

The cartographic boundary files are generalized representations of extracts taken from the MAF/TIGER Database.  Generalized boundary files are clipped to a simplified version of the U.S. outline.  As a result, some off-shore areas may be excluded from the generalized files.  Some small geographic areas, holes, or discontiguous parts of areas may not be included in generalized files if they are not visible at the target scale.

Positional_Accuracy:

Horizontal_Positional_Accuracy:

Horizontal_Positional_Accuracy_Report:

Data are not accurate. Data are generalized representations of geographic boundaries at 1:500,000.

Lineage:

Source_Information:

Source_Citation:

Citation_Information:

Originator:U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division, Geographic Customer Services Branch

Publication_Date:unpublished material

Title:

Census MAF/TIGER database

Type_of_Source_Media:Geo-spatial Relational Database

Source_Time_Period_of_Content:

Time_Period_Information:

Range_of_Dates/Times:

Beginning_Date:20150101

Ending_Date:20150101

Source_Currentness_Reference:

The dates describe the effective date of 2015 cartographic boundaries.

Source_Citation_Abbreviation:

MAF/TIGER

Source_Contribution:

All spatial and feature data

Process_Step:

Process_Description:

Spatial data were extracted from the MAF/TIGER database and processed through a U.S. Census Bureau batch generalization system.

Source_Used_Citation_Abbreviation:

MAF/TIGER

Process_Date:201603

Spatial_Data_Organization_Information:

Indirect_Spatial_Reference_Method:

INCITS (formerly FIPS) codes

Direct_Spatial_Reference_Method:Vector

Point_and_Vector_Object_Information:

SDTS_Terms_Description:

SDTS_Point_and_Vector_Object_Type:G-polygon

Point_and_Vector_Object_Count:3217

Spatial_Reference_Information:

Horizontal_Coordinate_System_Definition:

Geographic:

Latitude_Resolution:0.000458

Longitude_Resolution:0.000458

Geographic_Coordinate_Units:Decimal degrees

Geodetic_Model:

Horizontal_Datum_Name:North American Datum of 1983

Ellipsoid_Name:Geodetic Reference System 80

Semi-major_Axis:6378137.000000

Denominator_of_Flattening_Ratio:298.257222

Entity_and_Attribute_Information:

Detailed_Description:

Entity_Type:

Entity_Type_Label:cb_2015_42_tract_500k.shp

Entity_Type_Definition:

Current Census Tract State-based entities

Entity_Type_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute:

Attribute_Label:STATEFP

Attribute_Definition:

Current state Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) code

Attribute_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute_Domain_Values:

Codeset_Domain:

Codeset_Name:National Standard Codes (ANSI INCITS 38-2009), Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) - States/State Equivalents

Codeset_Source:U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute:

Attribute_Label:COUNTYFP

Attribute_Definition:

Current county Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) code

Attribute_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute_Domain_Values:

Codeset_Domain:

Codeset_Name:National Standard Codes (ANSI INCITS 31-2009), Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) - Counties/County Equivalents

Codeset_Source:U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute:

Attribute_Label:TRACTCE

Attribute_Definition:

Current census tract code

Attribute_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute_Domain_Values:

Enumerated_Domain:

Enumerated_Domain_Value:000000

Enumerated_Domain_Value_Definition:

Water tract in some coastal and Great Lakes water and territorial sea

Enumerated_Domain_Value_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute_Domain_Values:

Enumerated_Domain:

Enumerated_Domain_Value:000100 to 998999

Enumerated_Domain_Value_Definition:

Census tract number

Enumerated_Domain_Value_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute:

Attribute_Label:AFFGEOID

Attribute_Definition:

American FactFinder summary level code + geovariant code + '00US' + GEOID

Attribute_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute_Domain_Values:

Codeset_Domain:

Codeset_Name:American FactFinder geographic identifier

Codeset_Source:U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute:

Attribute_Label:GEOID

Attribute_Definition:

Census tract identifier;  a concatenation of current state Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) code, county FIPS code, and census tract code

Attribute_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute_Domain_Values:

Unrepresentable_Domain:

The GEOID attribute is a concatenation of the state FIPS code, followed by the county FIPS code, followed by the census tract code. No spaces are allowed between the two codes. The state FIPS code is taken from "National Standard Codes (ANSI INCITS 38-2009), Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) - States". The county FIPS code is taken from "National Standard Codes (ANSI INCITS 31-2009), Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) - Counties/County Equivalents". The census tract code is taken from the "TRACTCE" attribute.

Attribute:

Attribute_Label:NAME

Attribute_Definition:

Current census tract name, this is the census tract code converted to an integer or integer plus two-digit decimal if the last two characters of the code are not both zeros.

Attribute_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute_Domain_Values:

Unrepresentable_Domain:

Values for this attribute are composed of a set of census tract names. As such, they do not exist in a known, predefined set.

Attribute:

Attribute_Label:LSAD

Attribute_Definition:

Current legal/statistical area description code for Census tract

Attribute_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute_Domain_Values:

Enumerated_Domain:

Enumerated_Domain_Value:CT

Enumerated_Domain_Value_Definition:

Census Tract (prefix)

Enumerated_Domain_Value_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute:

Attribute_Label:ALAND

Attribute_Definition:

Current land area (square meters)

Attribute_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute_Domain_Values:

Range_Domain:

Range_Domain_Minimum:0

Range_Domain_Maximum:9,999,999,999,999

Attribute_Units_of_Measure:square meters

Attribute:

Attribute_Label:AWATER

Attribute_Definition:

Current water area (square meters)

Attribute_Definition_Source:

U.S. Census Bureau

Attribute_Domain_Values:

Range_Domain:

Range_Domain_Minimum:0

Range_Domain_Maximum:9,999,999,999,999

Attribute_Units_of_Measure:square meters

Distribution_Information:

Distributor:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Organization_Primary:

Contact_Organization:U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division, Geographic Customer Services Branch

Contact_Address:

Address_Type:mailing

Address:

4600 Silver Hill Road

City:Washington

State_or_Province:DC

Postal_Code:20233-7400

Country:United States

Contact_Voice_Telephone:301.763.1128

Contact_Facsimile_Telephone:301.763.4710

Contact_Electronic_Mail_Address:geo.geography@census.gov

Distribution_Liability:

No warranty, expressed or implied is made with regard to the accuracy of these data, and no liability is assumed by the U.S. Government in general or the U.S. Census Bureau in specific as to the spatial or attribute accuracy of the data.  The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty and no responsibility is assumed by the U.S. government in the use of these files.  The boundary information is for small-scale mapping purposes only; boundary depiction and designation for small-scale mapping purposes do not constitute a determination of jurisdictional authority or rights of ownership or entitlement and they are not legal land descriptions.

Standard_Order_Process:

Digital_Form:

Digital_Transfer_Information:

Format_Name:SHP

File_Decompression_Technique:PK-ZIP, version 1.93A or higher

Digital_Transfer_Option:

Online_Option:

Computer_Contact_Information:

Network_Address:

Network_Resource_Name: http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2015/shp/cb_2015_42_tract_500k.zip

Fees:The online cartographic boundary files may be downloaded without charge.

Ordering_Instructions:

To obtain more information about ordering Cartographic Boundary Files visit http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger.

Technical_Prerequisites:

The cartographic boundary files contain geographic data only and do not include display mapping software or statistical data. For information on how to use cartographic boundary file data with specific software package users shall contact the company that produced the software.

Distribution_Information:

Distributor:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Organization_Primary:

Contact_Organization:Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access (PASDA)

Contact_Address:

Address_Type:mailing and physical address

Address:

115 Land and Water building

City:University Park

State_or_Province:Pennsylvania

Postal_Code:16802

Country:United States

Contact_Voice_Telephone:(814) 865 - 8792

Contact_Electronic_Mail_Address:pasda@psu.edu

Distribution_Liability:

The USER shall indemnify, save harmless, and, if requested, defend those parties involved with the development and distribution of this data, their officers, agents, and employees from and against any suits, claims, or actions for injury, death, or property damage arising out of the use of or any defect in the FILES or any accompanying documentation. Those parties involved with the development and distribution excluded any and all implied warranties, including warranties or merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose and makes no warranty or representation, either express or implied, with respect to the FILES or accompanying documentation, including its quality, performance, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose. The FILES and documentation are provided "as is" and the USER assumes the entire risk as to its quality and performance. Those parties involved with the development and distribution of this data will not be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use the FILES or any accompanying documentation.

Metadata_Reference_Information:

Metadata_Date:201603

Metadata_Contact:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Organization_Primary:

Contact_Organization:U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division, Geographic Customer Services Branch

Contact_Address:

Address_Type:mailing

Address:

4600 Silver Hill Road

City:Washington

State_or_Province:DC

Postal_Code:20233-7400

Country:United States

Contact_Voice_Telephone:301.763.1128

Contact_Facsimile_Telephone:301.763.4710

Contact_Electronic_Mail_Address:geo.geography@census.gov

Metadata_Standard_Name:Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata

Metadata_Standard_Version:FGDC-STD-001-1998