Frequently Asked Questions about U.S. Census Bureau Maps

U.S. Department of Commerce

Geography Main | Maps | TIGER | Gazetteer | Reference

Frequently Asked Questions about U.S. Census Bureau Map Products

Block Maps	Census Tract/Block Numbering Area (BNA) Maps	Custom Maps
Street Maps and Driving Directions	Maps in the Public Domain	Maps of other Countries
Property Maps	ZIP Code Maps	Other types of Maps

Block Maps

We now have Census 2000 Block Maps on-line in Adobe Acrobat PDF. Printed paper Block maps are sold by our Customer Services Center. Block maps from the 1990 Census are also now available on-line.
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Census 2000 Tract Maps

We now have Census Tract Outline Maps (Census 2000) on-line in Adobe Acrobat PDF. Printed paper Census 2000 Tract maps are sold by the Customer Services Center.
The American FactFinder's Reference Map feature is the only on-line mapping engine at the Census Bureau that shows both 1990 and Census 2000 Census Tract boundaries, Census Tract numbers, and street names.
LandView 5 and 6, simple mapping applications available on CD-ROM and DVD have Census 2000 Tract boundaries, tract numbers and street names.
Printed paper maps are available through the Customer Services Center.
A Guide to Resources lists U.S. Census Bureau tools used to determine 1990 and 2000 Census Tract numbers.
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Custom Maps

We don't have the resources nor the mandate to produce custom maps on demand. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has topographic maps are available in digital form, i.e. Digital Raster Graphics (DRG) both from USGS and at least one private company. If you have graphics software like Paint or Corel Draw, etc. and a color printer you MAY be able to cut and paste an image file from the map to WordPerfect as a graphic.
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Street Maps and Driving Directions

We do not give driving directions between points nor do we have street, bus or subway maps. We do not have maps of hiking trails. However, there are a number of commercial sites that do. Try looking for them with one of the Web search engines using the key word "maps".
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Public Domain Maps

The map images you can download from this site are in the public domain and you are free to use them as you choose. They aren't meant to be imported into other mapping or geographic information system (GIS) packages. They can be imported into many graphics or paint packages where they can be further manipulated to a limited extent. If you want the base data for use in your GIS or other mapping package visit our TIGER^® Page for information on the TIGER/Line^® products. We also have some cartographic boundary files available for download.
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Maps of other countries

We don't have maps of other countries. We do not have map data for the entire world, we're only concerned with the United States. Try this links for possible sources of world data: Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas.
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Property Line or Plat Maps

We do not have maps that show property lines or that show ownership of property. Your local county/city tax assessment office is the place to look.
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ZIP Code Maps

We do not have ZIP Code maps, nor do we have digital boundary files for ZIP Codes (nor, to our knowledge, does the Post Office). The fact that ZIP Codes aren't required to be polygons makes them difficult to map.
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Other Maps: Contour, general purpose, State and County, etc.

We do not have general purpose city, county or state maps. If you are looking for general purpose maps for use as graphic images, try some of the commercial clip art collections (some have both vector and raster images) or graphics design packages. Some of the word processing software suites also have them. A good source for general purpose paper and digital maps is the U.S. Geological Survey. They are also the source of geological and land use maps. Also, try your state/local Department of Transportation. For nautical charts, try the National Ocean Service.
We do not have historical census maps available online.
We do not have maps showing historical county boundaries. We understand that there are sites on the Web with this information but we don't know how accurate their information is. Top of page

[PDF] or

denotes a file in Adobe’s Portable Document Format. To view the file, you will need the Adobe® Reader®

available free from Adobe.

E-mail questions and comments to:
geo.geography@census.gov.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Geography Division
Last Revised: Thursday, 17-May-2012 09:12:06 EDT