U.S. Census Bureau

USA Counties Data File Information


Windows XP File Download Setting
Basic Information
     Basic Information on Mastgroups File
     Basic Information on Mastdata File
     Locating Proper Correct Data File
     Locating Proper Columns Associating with Selected Item_Id
     Data Type Applied
File Formats:
     Mastgroups File Format
     Mastdata File Format
     Unit_Reference Format
     Source Format
     Footnote Reference
     Flag Reference
Appendix A - Source Notes and Explanations
CenStats - USA Counties TM
Contact for Additional Information
USA Counties Data Download
USA Counties Basic Information

Windows XP File Download Setting

    1) Double-Click My Computer icon

    2) Select Tools from Windows Toolbar

    3) Select Folder Options...

    4) Select File Types Tab

    5) Under Registered File Types, select XLS Microsoft EXCEL

    6) Click Advanced button

    7) Make sure the Confirm open after download box is checked

    8) Click OK button

    9) Click Close button

Basic_Information

1) Mastgroups - (KeyAbr and KeyAbreviation):


Open EXCEL file Mastgroups. It will have two columns KeyAbr and Descript. In column KeyAbr,
the user will find a standard three character abbreviation or acronymn for its official title as listed under
Descript. Try to and become familiar with the three character abbreviation or acronymn being used.

    Example:

    If a user is interested in the descript of Agriculture - NAICS then they should write
    down or become familiar with the abbreviation or acronymn of AGN. This will come into
    play when the user next opens the Mastdata file.

2) Mastdata - (Item_id and Item_Description):

Next, open file Mastdata. This EXCEL file has two columns with column names of Item_id and Item_description (row 1).

Column Item_id provides a name of an EXCEL column, for example, AFN110197D. The AFN of
AFN110197D indicates this is AFN type data. The 110 of AFN110197D indicates the group-series
number of AFN data. The 197 of AFN110197D indicates this is data of the year 1997, and D stands
for data. Likewise, 202 of AFN110202D indicates this is data of the year 2002.

The user should examine the titles in column Item_description and locate the description they are
looking for. Once a user locates an Item_description they are looking for, make note of the Item_id
corresponding to that Item_description. That Item_id is column name the user will be looking for in
one of the actual EXCEL data files.

3) FIND THE CORRECT DATA FILE - with selected data columns:

    Example:

    If a user is interested in file AGE110197D, they examine EXCEL files AGE01.xls, AGE02.xls, or
    AGE03.xls, or they may use zip file AGE.zip. alphbetical The columns of files AGE01.xls, AGE02.xls,
    and AGE03.xls are listed in order. For example, for AGE series, the columns would range from
    AGE010180D to AGE430202D in AGE01, AGE430203D to AGE830205D in AGE02, and
    AGE830206D to AGE900206D in AGE03. Therefore, column AGE110197D would be located in
    the AGE010180D to AGE430202D range, which can be found in files AGE01.xls orAGE.zip.

    Note that sum topics only have one related file, and some may have 2,3,4 or more files related to the
    key topic. The example above in reference to AGE has three files AGE01, AGE02, or AGE03.

4) LOCATING THE CORRESPONDING COLUMNS OF THE SELECTED Item_id.

Every data file, e.g. AGE01, AGE02, or AGE03, has its first two columns as Areaname and
STCOU. STCOU stands for the State-County code of a specific region (county, state, federal).
Each Item_id, e.g., AFN110197D has four columns (flag, data values, footkey1, footkey2). The
name ending with F is the flag column of the selected Item_id, for example, AFN110197F. The
name ending with D is the datavalue column of the selected Item_id, i.e., AFN110197D. The
name ending with N1 is the Footnote1 column of the selected Item_id, i.e., AFN110197N1. The
name ending with N2 is the Footnote2 column of the selected Item_id, i.e., AFN110197N2.

    Example:

    Each table selected (Item_id) has four corresponding columns of data: flag, datavalue,
    footkey1, footkey2 e.g. AFN110197F, AFN110197D, AFN110197N1, and AFN110197N2.

5) DATA TYPE:

Moreover, the flag column of a selected Item_id is integer data and the datavalue column of a
selected Item_id is double (numeric) data. The Footkey1 and Footkey2 columns of a
selected Item_id are text data. The STCOU column is text data, and the Areaname column
is text data.

File Formats:

Mastgroups File Format

File: Mastgroups - the generalized group classification of data
Subject: Field Name: Description:
Field 1: KeyAbr (text data) Acronym for Mastgroup title in DESCRIPT field, e.g. acronym HEA stands for Health
Field 2: DESCRIPT (text data) Name of a specific group of data e.g. Health is a group, where there may be many individual Health files (EXCEL columns)

Mastdata File Format

File: Mastdata - collection of all individual data names (originally a table name) and description
Subject: Field Name: Description:
Field 1: Item_Id (text data) Official name of data subject (e.g. AFN110197D has four parts: mastgroup, file number, year of data, and D. In this case the mastgroup is AFN and the file number is 110. The year is 197 which stands for 1997 and is followed by the letter D)
Field 2: Item_Description (text data) Detail description of name under Item_Id

Unit_Reference File Format

File: Unit_Reference - units of measurement applied to data of individual data collections
Subject: Field Name: Description:
Field 1: ID (text data) Acronym for Unit Description
Field 2: DESCRIPT Units in reference to data value

Source File Format

File: Source - source provider of data
Subject: Field Name: Description:
Field 1: ID (text data) Acronym for Description (Data Provider)
Field 2: DESCRIPTION (text data) Name of data provider

Footnote_Reference File Format

File: FOOTNOTE_REFERENCE - collection of footnotes applied to some records of each data collection
Subject: Field Name: Description:
Field 1: ID (text data) Four digit footnote code
Field 2: DESCRIPTION (text data) Detail description corresponding to footnote code

Flag_Reference File Format

File: FLAG_REFERENCE - reference description and id of applied flags used in data collection
Subject: Field Name: Description:
Field 1: ID (text data) Id of a particular flag_reference
Field 2: DESCRIPTION (text data) Detail description of a particular flag reference

Appendix A: Source Notes and Explanations

     For comments on data quality, see Appendix A - Source Notes and Explanations from the 2007 edition of the country and City Data Book Source Notes and Explanations[PDF Format]

CenStats - USA Counties TM

     Visit web location: CenStats - USA Counties TM    CenStats - USA Counties TM

Contact for Additional Information

     For further information send email to: ACSD.US.Data@Census.gov

USA Counties Data Download
USA Counties Basic Information
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Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Administrative and Customer Services Division, Electronic Products Development Branch