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FGDC Social, Cultural and Demographic Data (SCDD) Subcommittee

1:30-4:00pm, December 6, 2005

Department of Commerce, Washington DC

Attendees:

FIPS Codes Update: Mike Ratcliffe, U.S. Census Bureau

Background: the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued a Federal Register Notice in 2005 stating that the geographic codes standards known as Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) were being dropped. The Census Bureau and the USGS decided to transfer the codes from FIPS standards to American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards as they are still used extensively and must be maintained.

The Census Bureau is responsible for the FIPS standards on: States (FIPS 5-2), Counties (FIPS 6-4), and Congressional Districts (FIPS 9-1). The only changes to these standards will be the addition of status classification codes to the county codes standard. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is responsible for setting Metropolitan and Micropolitan criteria (FIPS 8-6). The Population Division of the Census Bureau will maintain these codes. The codes will change from a 4-digit code to a 5-digit code.

The USGS is responsible for Places and County Subdivisions (FIPS 55). This standard will be maintained under the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) at the USGS. These codes will change from a fixed 5-digit code to a code consisting of 1 to 8 digits. The new codes already exist in the GNIS. They are permanent identifiers and unique within the entire United States. If a city changes its name, the code will stay the same and both the old and the new names will be linked. A drawback to this is that the new code system does not sort alphabetically. New 5-digit codes will no longer be issued after January 1, 2006. The Census Bureau will still use and issue 5-digit codes internally because of the current data systems that use the 5-digit fixed-field for places. The 1-8 character GNIS identifiers will go out in Census Bureau public products.

Boundary Standard Update: Randy Fusaro and Anne O’Connor, Census

The Governmental Unit and Other Geographic Area Boundaries Standard is Part 5 of the FGDC Framework Standard. It was out for public review last year. Those comments were adjudicated. The Boundary part of the standard was recently put out for a targeted review to those people who sent in comments during the public review in order to assess the adjudication of their comments. The new comments currently are being adjudicated and will be sent to the USGS in Rolla for incorporation into the final standard. We are unsure as to when the entire Framework Standard will be ready for review by the International Committee for Information Technology Standards Geography Information (INCITS L1), the committee that will promote the Framework Standard as an (ANSI) national standard, as all parts are not yet ready.

Randy suggested that the Boundary Standard be put forth as an FGDC standard at the very least, so that there is an accepted Federal Standard for boundaries since that timing could happen much sooner than ANSI status. The advantage to this idea would be that we would have an accepted standard, rather than a draft standard, to point to for those interested in adopting it. This will be discussed at the next FGDC Standards Working Group Meeting on December 20, 2005.

Street Address Data Standard: Ed Wells, URISA

Ed Wells of URISA gave a powerpoint presentation on the Address Data Content Standard [PPT]. The standard is out for a review until January 16. The entire standard and an executive summary may be found at the URISA site.

Discussion Points:

  1. Ed explained that the review now underway is informal and unofficial. He requested that Federal agency representatives provide comments now so that any concerns can be considered before the draft is presented to FGDC for formal approval and public review.
  2. In the past two months additional presentations or briefings have been given to the URISA Annual Conference, U.S. Postal Service (USPS), FGDC Coordinating Committee, and Department of Homeland Security Geospatial Working Group.
  3. There was discussion of the usefulness and limits of using FIPS codes to identify local address authorities.
  4. ISO 3166-1 (short English names) was considered a sound choice as a standard for nation names, because it is international.
  5. A schedule was suggested that would put the Standard out for Public Review at the end of May or early June, with final approval, if all goes smoothly, likely to occur in late 2006 or early 2007.

Concluding Thoughts:

At the end of the meeting, Randy asked if there might be other cultural or demographic standards that should be proposed. Mike Ratcliffe suggested that the definition of an urban area should be standardized. Currently there are at least 6 different definitions being used in different Federal programs. Mike will follow up on this suggestion.

Meeting adjourned at 4:00 pm.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division
National Geographic Partnerships Team
Created: December 19, 2005
Last revised: July 13, 2011

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