2004 First Edition TIGER/Line® FilesThe TIGER/Line files are extracts of selected geographic and cartographic information from the Census Bureau's TIGER® (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) database.
List of Counties with Realigned Street Features Replaced on February 3, 2005 - The list of counties with realigned street features released on January 28, 2005 included Blanco County, Texas (FIPS 48031). This county should not have appeared on the list and has been removed.
With the 2004 First Edition TIGER/Line files, the U.S. Census Bureau is beginning twice a year releases of the TIGER/Line files. The 2004 First Edition TIGER/Line files are the first of two versions of the TIGER/Line files that will contain 2004 geographic boundaries. The Census Bureau is releasing the 2004 First Edition TIGER/Line files by county or statistically equivalent entity based on the latest available governmental unit boundaries (January 1, 2004). The 2004 First Edition TIGER/Line file coverage is as follows: all counties, parishes, boroughs, census areas and equivalent entities for each state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas.
The 2004 First Edition TIGER/Line files are the first version of the TIGER/Line files to include counties or statistically equivalent entities containing realigned street feature coordinates that have progressed through the MAF/TIGER Accuracy Improvement Project. Except for those counties with realigned street features, the 2004 First Edition TIGER/Line files contain very few updates to street features or address ranges from the Census 2000 versions of the TIGER/Line files.
New Record Type and Changes to the File Structure
The Census Bureau has added a new record type to the 2004 First Edition TIGER/Line files. Record Type M provides spatial metadata for each feature in a TIGER/Line files. The TIGER 1-Cell Source Code (SOURCEID) in Record Type M identifies the source for each line segment and provides the link between the TIGER/Line files and the source and horizontal spatial accuracy information in the county based metadata. Please note that the horizontal spatial accuracy, where reported in the metadata, refers only to the realigned street features identified as matched to the positionally accurate source file with that accuracy. It is not the spatial accuracy of the TIGER/Line file as a whole.
The Census Bureau also added two new fields, Urban Area, Current (UACU) and Urban/Rural Indicator, Current (URCU) to Record Type A. We recently integrated the August 23, 2002 corrections to the Census 2000 urbanized areas and urban clusters into the Census TIGER database. The current urban areas, including the corrections, appear in Record Type A. The Census 2000 representation of urban areas, minus all corrections, is still available in Record Type S.
There is one TIGER/Line file (in a compressed format) for each county or county equivalent. The file names consist of TGR + the 2-digit state FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) code + the 3-digit county FIPS code (i.e. TGR01031.ZIP for Coffee County, Alabama.) Each state folder contains individual county files as well as a Counts file. The county files are stored in compressed format and are compatible with PK Ware's PK Zip software. The COUNTSnn.TXT files (where "nn" is the state FIPS code) show the counts for the number of records for each record type by county for a state. If the count for a particular record type is 0, then that record type does not exist for that county.
The Census Bureau produces the TIGER/Line files in ASCII text format only; therefore, the data are NOT in the form of map images. To create maps with the TIGER/Line files, one would typically use a Geographic Information System (GIS) package or other mapping software.
Users are responsible for converting or translating the files into a format used by their specific software package. For information on how to use the TIGER/Line data with a specific software package one should contact the company that produced that software. For information on companies that sell products that use TIGER/Line data or that provide TIGER/Line related services, refer to the TIGER Vendor List.
Think we've missed a few counties? The 2004 First Edition TIGER/Line files are based on the boundaries of counties or statistically equivalent entities as reported to the U.S. Census Bureau to be legally in effect on January 1, 2004.
If you have questions about the Census Bureau's TIGER/Line files, please contact the Geography Division at geo.tiger@census.gov.
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