United States Decennial Census

UNITED STATES CENSUS INFORMATION… Ruth Dye

QUICK ACCESS – from the Library’s homepage type ‘census’ in the search box in the upper right corner. Select - Census 2000: A Pollak Library Research Guide. This is a useful guide prepared by Cathy Kaye. It provides access to and information about the main census web sites and products, and step-by-step instructions on how to perform specific sample searches. This guide is also accessible from the research guide for Government Information.

Census 2000 Gateway. Main U.S. Bureau of the Census site which provides access to data tables, publications, news, forms, etc. It also provides links to American Factfinder, the American Community Survey and Historical Census files.

CURRENT (2000) CENSUS DATA.

American Factfinder. This is the main site for accessing the latest (2000) census data. Fact sheets provide a quick way to access general, social, economic and housing data for a specific geographic entity. Census data is available for national, state, county, place, census tract/block levels, etc. in the Summary Files. The tract/block number, etc., of an area can be found by performing an address search.

Data: type name of place in Factfinder search box and select state. To expand results click on “Show more” next to category title. Limitations: data is from 2000; data is available to the place (i.e. Fullerton) geographic type only. For finer geographic areas the Decennial data sets need to be used. For more up-to-date estimates use the American Community Survey.

UPDATED DATA.

American Community Survey. This product updates the decennial census information by surveying 3,000,000 households each year. It includes “estimates of demographic and economic characteristics of people, households and housing units (both occupied and vacant) for every state in the Nation, most areas with a population of 250,000 or more, and selected areas of 65,000 or more.” In 2006 they will start issuing annual data for areas with populations of 65,000 or more and eventually data for smaller populations will also be available. Presently, it does not provide the detailed geographic divisions available in the decennial census.

Data: On the American Factfinder main page under American Community Survey click on “get data”; “data profiles”; select geographic type, state and name of place. Limitations: doesn’t update all geographic entities available in American Factfinder, but this should improve as more data becomes available.

HISTORICAL CENSUS INFORMATION.

Data from 1790 (1st) to 1990 (21st) censuses is available online. This guide also lists volumes of historical census that the library owns.

Data: From the Library’s guide Census 2000: A Pollak Library Research Guide click on “Historical Census Data” in the alphabetical list at the top of the page. Select either “‘United States Historical Census Browser” or “Census 1790 to 2000” Note: Terminology, geographical areas and what is being counted has changed over time.

July 2006