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Notes:
Census tracts are statistical areas averaging about 4,000 people. Counties and equivalent areas are subdivided into Census tracts. These areas remain fairly constant from census to census and are useful for a variety of applications.
The smallest geographic area for which you can obtain Census 2000 data is the block. Blocks are normally bounded by streets or other prominent physical features or by the boundaries of geographic areas. They may be as small as a typical city block bounded by 4 streets or as large as over 100 square miles in some rural areas. A block averages about 100 persons each.
There has been a complete renumbering of blocks across the U.S. One other major change is that the numbering has gone from a three-digit system to a four-digit system. Water bodies were also assigned block numbers in Census 2000 for the first time.
SPEAKER NOTES: Changes in geographic concepts from 1990.
• Outlying Areas are now referred to as Island Areas.
• The term “Block Numbering Area” is no longer used. Census tracts cover the entire country.
• In Alaska, Anchorage is now referred to as a municipality, and Juneau and Sitka are each referred to as a "city and borough", at both the county and place levels. See the sections (on the web at http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/glossary.html ) on Counties and Places, which also provide information about Yakutat in Alaska, as well as other entities that have changed since the 1990 census.)
• The U.S. Census Bureau changed "tribal jurisdiction statistical area (TJSA)" to Oklahoma tribal statistical area
(OTSA) to avoid the perception that these statistical entities might reflect any type of legal status, and "joint
area" to "joint use area" to better denote the common usage of overlapping tribal lands.
• Data tabulations for Census 2000 differentiate between federally recognized American Indian tribes and tribes
recognized only by state governments. FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/glossary.html
• ZCTAs - are new for 2000 and are approximate representations of five- or three-digit U.S. Postal Service ZIP Code service areas. ZCTAs are composed of census blocks and represent the majority ZIP Code for addresses within a census block.
• Places - Incorporated places are concentrations of population such as cities, that have legally prescribed boundaries, powers, and
functions. Other population centers without legally defined corporate limits or corporate powers are defined by the Census Bureau in cooperation with state officials and local data users. These are called Census-Designated Places (CDP). There is no minimum population size for CDPs in 2000.
