TSAP Guidelines and Delineation Activities

Guidelines and Delineation Activities

TSAP participants had the option of updating and/or delineating tribal statistical areas using either paper maps or Geographic Information System (GIS) tools and shapefiles. Both paper map and GIS materials were provided by the Census Bureau. Participants who chose to use the paper map option used color leaded pencils to draw their statistical area boundaries on paper maps. Detailed paper map guidelines may be downloaded from the links found at the bottom of this page.

Participants who chose to use the GIS based option accomplished their delineation project using a Census Bureau developed ESRI® ArcGIS® ArcMap™ based software extension. The extension was compatible with ArcMap version 9.2 or higher regardless of which ESRI service pack the user's computer had installed. Participants who utilized the ArcMap extension followed the methods set forth in the Digital Participant Guidelines that can be downloaded from the link below.

Both paper map and GIS materials were mailed to participants in January 2009. If a participant preferred one option over the other (i.e. paper maps vs. GIS/digital) and did not receive their materials, they requested the desired materials by contacting the Regional Census Center (RCC).

Participants had 120 calendar days from the date they received their initial TSAP materials to complete their review and submit their delineations to the Census Bureau for processing. A final copy of updated boundaries was made available in early calendar year 2010 and participants had the opportunity to verify boundaries and to discuss any changes made by the Census Bureau with RCC Geography staff.

Digital Participant Guidelines [PDF]

Paper Map Participant Guidelines

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