GEOSPATIAL DATA REPORT : Finding and Using GIS Data

http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrshp2009/tgrshp2009.html
(or directly from http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/)

2009 version just came out on 10/1/09! Previous versions are also linked from this site.

The TIGER/Line Shapefiles are extracts containing selected geographic and cartographic information from the Census Bureau’s MAF/TIGER® database. Unlike the previous Cartographic Boundary Files site, this site includes block boundary files as well as hydrography, transportation/streets and landmark data files. Users can also download multiple TIGER/Line Shapefiles at a time via this FTP site.

Again, these files contain no demographic information but are designed to be used with decennial census population and housing data as well as other related federal datasets.

http://lehdmap3.did.census.gov/themap3/

LED (Local Employment Dynamics) OnTheMap is “a web-based mapping and reporting application that shows where workers are employed and where they live. It also provides companion reports on age, earnings, industry distributions, and local workforce indicators.” Unlike other federal programs,  the main source of this application comes from states – payroll tax payment records (Unemployment Insurance, also known as Employment Security, ES-202 program) maintained by each state, and the information is available for the participating states only (LED version 3 has 46 states.) It’s a fascinating program! Learn more about this tool and related programs, starting from this site : http://lehd.did.census.gov/led/datatools/onthemap3.html

[Image left: Laborshed analysis map, showing a residential pattern of the City of Chicago employees – employees who works in the city hall.)

You can make maps and a variety of data reports on the OnTheMap site (use of the web tool is highly recommended) but *experienced* data users may choose to use the public use data instead, which is available from http://vrdc.ciser.cornell.edu/onthemap/doc/index.html (user registration is required!) The LED OnTheMap data is available at a census block level.  Note: it’s not easy to use this dataset – use the OnTheMap web tool instead and stay away unless you are comfortable with large dataset handling and statistics!

http://www.transtats.bts.gov/Tables.asp?DB_ID=630&DB_Name=Census%20Transportation%20Planning%20Package%20%28CTPP%29%202000&DB_Short_Name=CTPP%202000

(Check also : 1990 CTPP data from BTS transtats. Or, get 1990 & 2000 data CDs from BTS Bookstore..)

CTPP, Census Transportation Planning Package, formerly known as “journey to work” data, is a collection of special summary tables which are tabulated from decennial censuses for transportation planning.  The smallest geographic levels are either census tracts, block groups, or TAZ (Traffic Analysis Zone) – depending on the MPC (Metropolitan Planning Council?)  In Chicago, the smallest geography is census tract in 2000, and TAZ in 1990.

History: In 1970 and 1980, this dataset was called “Urban Transportation Planning Package (UTPP)” which is not publicly available – check local MPOs (Metropolitan Planning Organizations).

Use Part 2 data, place of work, to obtain job/employment counts. Part 1, place of residence, data are basically the same as decennial population census data with more detailed “transportation” related variables. Part 2 is uniquely tabulated – counting people not by place of residence (part 1) but by place of work. Hence, you can find how many people work in a specific census tract, or a specific place.

Though CTPP isn’t meant to be used to count jobs, part 2 data can offer good alternative estimates.  To learn more about the use of CTPP part 2 data as a source of employment estimates, I highly recommend this article by Nanda Srinivasan – CTPP Workers-at-Work Compared to Other Employment Estimates (on page 2).

[Image left: %  female and male employees - by place of employment. The maps show different employment/job location patterns by gender in space. Source: CTPP 2000, Part 2, Table 3.]

Part 3, journey to work, data is equally unique and useful if you are interested in commuting patterns. The Part 3 tells you how many people travel/commute from one place (residence) to another (work place.)

[Image right: Employee residential patterns - Northwestern University (Evanston Campus, tract 8087.02) & Univ of Chicago (North & The Quadrangle campuses, tract 4113). Source: CTPP 2000, Part 3, Table 3. ]

Another CTPP like data source for employment analsyis is LED On The Map data. See the next posting..

http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govinfo/resource/regional/ChicagoCommunityAreas_Tracts_Relate.csv

Since a couple of people have asked – I created a crosswalk table (comma delimited) showing the relationship between Chicago community areas (Chicago’s defact & statistical neighborhoods) and the Census tracts.

Boundary Files from : http://www.aeroterra.com/d-argentinagral.htm (AEROTERRA, a private GIS company in Argentina. The note says that these data were taken from the Soil Atlas of Argentina.) – Also the image left

2001 Census Data : http://www.indec.gov.ar/webcenso/

I was looking for an Argentina boundary file at a department level (nation – province – department, about the size of U.S. counties, so my student explained..) so that my student can visualize 2001 census data she obtained from Argentina governmental website, and then I came across this AEROTERRA site.  Great – now we know we can visualize Argentina 2001 census data at a department level.

My patron was also interested in the past census data, which we don’t think is available from the INDEC (Argentina official census site.) So, we tred https://international.ipums.org/international/ to see if we can generate department level data using 1970, 1980, 1990 micro sample data. First, we compared the 2001 official census summary data from INDEC and the IPUMS micro sample-aggregate data to see how close the aggregated sample IPUMS data would be to the official INDEC data. We thought the resulted IPUMS 2001 aggregated data was close enough to the INDEC summary file. It’s so great that we don’t need to type in all data from the Argentina census books.. We love IPUMS! (Note: your research data request must be approved by IPUMS people first!)

I will add a map of AEROTERRA boundary plus IPUMS data map later -

http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/usgrid/

“The U.S. Census Grids provide raster data sets that include not only population and housing counts, but a wide variety of socioeconomic characteristics. These gridded data sets transform irregularly shaped census block and block group boundaries into a regular surface – a raster grid – for faster and easier analysis. Data sets are currently available for the year 2000. Data sets for 1990 are scheduled for release in early 2007.” Accessed on 1/19/09.

Visit also Berkeley/Penn Urban & Environmental Modeler’s Dataset for similar raster datasets.

http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/plue/cenguide.html

I prefer to use block data for community analysis as long as data is available. You probably know you can obtain 1990 & 2000 census block level data (SF1/STF1 and also boundary files) quite easily, but if you want to map 1980 data at a block level, you need this CIESIN’s archival dataset!

The Archive of Census Related Products is a collection of georeferenced data files containing census information. 1980 Census boundary files, including blocks, are available from here in the BNA format – see under “Boundary Files“. Once you download BNA files, you can convert the BNA files to MapInfo MIF format files using BNA2MIF.exe (DOS executable – download from ftp://ftp.ciesin.org/pub/census/usa/contrib/bna2mif/), and then convert MIF to Shapefiles using ArcView tool, MIF to Shape (available in ArcView 3.x or ArcCatalog’s ArcView 8x Tools set.)

Here is how the BNA2MIF.exe works:

1. Save bna2mif.exe and input files (.bna file) in the same directory.
2. Open a command prompt (cmd.exe), change directory (cd) to the directory where bna2mif.exe and input files reside.
3. Run (syntax: start) the executable using the following syntax:

Syntax: (program)   (input)             (output)
bna2mif     bxxxxx.bna     bxxxxx

4. This will generate:  bxxxxx.mif and bxxxxx.mid, MapInfo import files. Note: Input and output files do not necessarily need to have the same name.

<Example>
C:\>cd C:\thedirectory
C:\thedirecoty>start bna2mif bxxxxx.bna output

Once you have the 1980 block boundary files, all you need is accompanying attribute data. Obtain 1980 block statistics attribute data, Census of Population and Housing 1980 Summary Tape File 1B, from ICPSR, http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07975

http://www.nhgis.org/

Download historical census data & cartographic boundary files (states, counties & tracts.) The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) is a project to create and freely disseminate a database incorporating all available aggregate census information for the United States between 1790 and 2000.  Registration (free!) is required to access files.

Census tract data was first collected in 1910 for selected cities only (NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, St. Louis, Baltimore, Boston, and Pittsburgh) and was later expanded to the whole nation in 1940 (still urbanized areas only.) [Reference - learn more about the Census tract data history from this Census's history website or from the following book: Bulmer, Martin. 1986. The Chicago School of Sociology. P. 157-.]

http://www.esri.com/data/download/census2000_tigerline/

Another resource for GIS census data. TIGER base line data, streets & railroads, and also detailed boundary files, blocks, (not available from the US Census boundary files site above) are available. Users can also download accompanying basic demographic and housing data from the 2000 Census Summary File 1 for various geographic levels.

Click on “Preview and Download” on the left to access the files.

http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cob/

“The boundary files available here are selected generalized extracts from the Census Bureau’s TIGER geographic database and are designed for use in a Geographic Information System (GIS) or similar mapping system. These are not map images. They have been developed for various internal Census Bureau projects and have been made available here to the general public on an “as is” basis.”

These files do not contain any demographic information but are designed to be used with decennial census population and housing data as well as other US federal datasets.

See also the U.S. Census 2007 TIGER/Line® Shapefiles page (new!)

http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/toukeiChiri.do?method=init

Click on the second item, ダウンロード, to access downloadable files. Since the previous GISPlaza (統計GIS in Japanese) site isn’t accessible (http://gisplaza.stat.go.jp/GISPlaza) I am guessing this is the newer version of the GIS data and statistics website..

The GIS Plaza of Statistics provides small area statistics including censuses and industry/business surveys (down to either cities/places or wards if applicable)  and thematic maps showing the distribution of statistical indicators for small areas (i.e. subdivision of municipalities.) Here are step-by-step instructions on how to download boundary data & data tables, http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/NetHelp10/WordDocuments/_95.htm.  Here is another instructional document on how to use the interactive mapping website, http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/NetHelp10/WordDocuments/_16.htm. Note: text in Japanese only – use Google Translate or other language tools to get some ideas. .  Visit also http://www.stat.go.jp/english/ for other statistics on Japan in English.

http://www.stats.govt.nz/statistics-by-area/geography-mapping/digital-boundaries.htm

Digital Boundaries are electronic files of the various geographic boundaries (in digitised form) for use in mapping and geographic information systems (GIS). Meshblock boundaries, and boundaries of larger areas, are available digitally.

Also available from this site are:

• Streets file – an electronic list of address ranges and street names that fall within meshblocks, which can be used to geocode addresses to meshblocks
• Area files – an electronic list that classifies meshblocks into larger geographic areas. The Area files, also known as a concordance file, provide a mapping of the geographic hierarchies so you can see how the various geographic boundaries link together

http://geodepot.statcan.ca/Diss/Data/Data_e.cfm

Census geography covers a wide range of geographic areas – from provinces and territories down to city blocks. These geographic areas have boundaries, names, and other information that make it possible to locate them on the ground and to relate census data to them.

Two major datasets available from here are:

• Census boundary files
• Road network file, 2005

The Canadian Road Network includes address ranges for street segments and thus probably the best free source for geocoding Canadian address locations. I believe this is the source data for the free Canadian geocoder site, http://geocoder.ca/ .

See also: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/mgeo/index-eng.htm

http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/

GeoGratis is a portal provided by the Earth Sciences Sector (ESS) of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) which provides geospatial data at no cost. GeoGratis uses both File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to distribute geospatial data via its portal. To access data files, click on “Download Directory” on the left, select data types (vecor, raster, tabular), select geographic levels, select subjects/themes, and then files.

Data available from GeoGratis include:

• Administrative boundaries
• Protected areas
• Hydrography
• Tail and toad netowrks (?)
• VMAP0
• CanVec (50K, sort of like DLG and VMAP)
• NTDB (National Topographic Data Base, older version of CanVec)
• Land inventory (250K & 50K)
• Electoral districts
• Census data
• Ecosystems data
• AVHRR land cover data
• Satellite Imagery
• Scannded maps
• Airborne data
• DEM
• Conservation area database

http://www.cityofchicago.org/gis

City of Chicago GIS dataset, printable maps and interactive maps are available from this site. To access GIS data files, click on “GIS Data” or select categorized datasets.

Note: Come back often to this site to get the latest data – the City of Chicago GIS irregularly updates data files – and you cannot tell which files were updated until you download data and compare!  For example, well sought after geocodable Chicago streets shapefiles, TRANSPORTATION_DSLV_1.zip, are now available from the site. Still, no metadata comes with the files..

Datasets available from the site area are categorized into the following groups:

• Base data
• Boundary data
• Incentive programs
• Points of interest
• Transportation Data