The Census Bureau has updated field names in the 1999 TIGER/Line files to make them consistent with the field names that will be part of the geographic header used in all Census 2000 data files including the Summary Files. For information on field name changes between the 1998 and 1999 TIGER/Line files click here.

The Census Bureau is using the 1999 TIGER/Line files to exchange data with local partners participating in U.S. Census Bureau programs. Data users should NOT use the information contained in fields identified as 2000 (TENTATIVE) as the Census 2000 geographic codes. These data are subject to change. Fields identified as 2000 (TENTATIVE) are intended for use by program participants only.

In the 1999 and subsequent TIGER/Line files, no single address-address ranges will appear, including out-of-parity and out-of-sequence addresses. That is, when there is a single address that is "out of place" geographically (for example, across the street from all other odd addresses or four blocks away from all other 3000-series addresses), the Census Bureau will exclude that single address from any address range. These addresses are withheld to protect the confidentiality of individual addresses collected through census field operations as specified by Title 13 of the U.S. Code. Beginning with the 1999 TIGER/Line files, there can be multiple ZIP+4 codes associated with a single address range.

A new CFCC type may appear on some street features in the 1999 and subsequent TIGER/Line files. Some street features that normally would be classified with an "A" class CFCC may be coded with a "P" instead of the "A" in the TIGER/Line files. These are provisional features which were added to the Census TIGER data base in preparation for Census 2000, but were not field verified by census staff during field operations or through the use of aerial photography or imagery. As these features are verified in future operations the provisional flag will be removed for subsequent TIGER/Line releases. Features that still have the provisional flag at the time the Census Bureau assigns the Census 2000 tabulation block numbers will not be held as Census 2000 tabulation block boundaries.

The Census Bureau is no longer using codes to represent the diacritical marks. Beginning with the 1999 TIGER/Line files, the Census Bureau is using the ISO 8859-1 character set, commonly referred to as Latin-1, to identify characters with diacritical marks.

The vintage of each version of the TIGER/Line files is reflected in the name of the TIGER/Line file and not the version code. The year noted in the version of the TIGER/Line files normally represents the vintage of the boundaries in the file in those fields identified as "current" while the version code reflects the database extraction date for the TIGER/Line files. The 1999 TIGER/Line files are an exception because of the delay in their production. The "current" governmental unit boundaries in the 1999 TIGER/Line files generally represent the January 1, 2000 governmental unit boundaries as reported in the 2000 Boundary and Annexation Survey. These boundaries are subject to correction before the release of the 2000 TIGER/Line files in 2001.

TIGER/Line 1999 Errata and User Notes  Read this first!

TIGER/Line 1999 Download available files.

TIGER/Line 1999 Technical Documentation


TIGER/Line 1999 README.TXT

TIGER/Line 1999 Metadata

The Record Layouts for the TIGER/Line 1999 and 2000 files are in Adobe Acrobat PDF.

TIGER/Line 1999 Record Layout
(As of April 2000)

TIGER/Line 2000
(Record layout as of April 2000)

[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.