Census 2000 TIGER/Line Data Description

The Census 2000 TIGER/Line shapefiles were created from the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) database of the United States Census Bureau. The shapefiles contain data about the following features

• Line Features—roads, railroads, hydrography, and transportation and utility lines.
• Boundary Features—statistical (e.g., census tracts and blocks); government (e.g., places and counties); and administrative (e.g., congressional and school districts).
• Landmark Features—point (e.g., schools and churches); area (e.g., parks and cemeteries); and key geographic locations (e.g., apartment buildings and factories).

The shapefiles do not contain

• Zip Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs)
• Current address range information as reflected in the Master Address File (MAF)
• Corrections to naming of some geographic entities, including voting districts and school districts, and attributes such as Place Description Codes (PLACEDC) and Legal/Statistical Area Description Codes (LSADC)

This updated Census information for the 2000 TIGER/Line files is available from the U.S. Census Bureau at Census 2000 TIGER/Line Files. The U.S. Census Bureau also provides GENERALIZED cartographic boundary files for many of their geographies. These cartographic boundary files can be downloaded by state, in shapefile format (.shp), as well as ArcInfo export files (.e00).

The Census 2000 TIGER/Line shapefiles reflect the final census data with the following exceptions

• The street addresses are not yet based on the MAF.
• The voting district files are not updated for the 2002 elections.
• Updates have not been made to all layers affected by the TIGER/Line changes for Maricopa, AZ.

The UA Census 2000 files are now available. For more information, see UA Census 2000 TIGER/Line files.

The demographic (SF1) layers are made up of a subset of commonly used U.S. Census Summary File 1 (SF1) attributes. For a listing of the specific attributes used, see the SF1 Quick Reference Guide.

You need GIS software to access the shapefiles once you've downloaded them. For example, you can use ESRI's ArcView or ArcExplorer-Java Edition.

The Census 2000 TIGER/Line files were converted to shapefile format using the TGRR2SHP Translator available from GIS Tools, Inc.

Technical documentation for PL 94-171 and SF1 data

• U.S. Census PL 94-171 [PDF]
• ESRI Abbreviated PL 94-171 [PDF]
• U.S. Census Summary File 1 (SF1) [PDF]

For additional information on TIGER/Line data, see

• Census Watch: Data and Product Documentation
• TIGER/Line Files Technical Documentation [PDF]
• TIGER/Line Files Metadata
• Census Web Site