Which Data Table or Tool Should I Use?

Unfamiliar with the many ways you can obtain statistics from the American Community Survey (ACS)? Learn more about the tools available to help you access current social, economic, housing, and demographic statistics for the nation's communities.

Congressional Staffer

Mariam

Vicki, in Congressman Underwood's office, needs updated information about the congressman's constituents with the latest congressional district boundaries. She would also like to post this information on the congressman's website to share with interested parties.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • It contains statistics for every district.
  • It includes statistics on popular topics such as education, housing, jobs, and more.
  • The results page can be embedded on your website.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • The geography selection is limited to congressional districts.
  • It contains only a subset of all ACS topics.

 

Go to My Congressional District now!

Tip: For more geographies or topics, try Subject Tables, Data Profiles, or other tools below.

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Tribal Planner

Mariam

Chava is a tribal planner looking for information about the people and housing in her tribal area to plan future improvements. She is working on a tight deadline, and needs a way to quickly access tribal statistics on a variety of topics.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • It contains statistics for American Indian and Alaska Native areas.
  • It includes statistics on popular topics, such as employment status, income, education, and more.
  • The results page can be embedded on your website.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • It contains only a subset of all ACS topics.
  • The geography selection is limited to tribal areas.
  • Data are not available for detailed tribal groups--only tribal areas.

Go to My Tribal Area now!

 

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Mayor

Mariam

Mayor McKay of ACSville is looking for key facts about the people and businesses in her town before heading to the statewide conference of mayors. She wants to be able to quickly compare facts from her town to other towns in her state.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • It's easy to use -- just choose your state, county, city, or town.
  • It combines statistics from American Community Survey with other surveys to give a broader view of a particular geography in table, map, and chart formats.
  • Results can be downloaded or shared.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • The geography selection is limited to state, county, city, and town.
  • It contains only a subset of all ACS topics.
  • The ACS data shown in this tool are only for the most recent 5-year estimates.

Go to QuickFacts!

Tip: For more geographies or topics, try Subject Tables, Data Profiles or other tools below.

 

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Emergency Planner

Mariam

Chief Ryan, a county emergency planner, needs an easy way to access selected statistics, such as language spoken at home, age of housing units, and vehicle availability, to help his community recover from disasters, natural hazards, and weather events.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • You need to access statistics for event areas in real time.
  • It combines statistics from American Community Survey with data from other surveys to give a broader view of an event area.
  • It has linkable maps and reports to share.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • The geographic selection is limited to event areas.
  • It contains only a subset of all ACS topics.

 

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Business Owner

Mariam

Kaleeb wants information about potential customers, similar businesses, and consumer spending to figure out where to locate his gas station. He's looking for key data that is relevant to small business owners, and he may decide to insert a report or map in a business plan for his investors.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • You want to open a new business or expand an existing business.
  • It combines statistics from the American Community Survey with economic data to guide your research.
  • The interactive map allows you to select areas and compare their results to those of neighboring areas.
  • Reports are downloadable and printable.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • The geographic selection is limited to states, metros, counties, places, ZIP codes, and census tracts.
  • It contains only a subset of all ACS topics.

 

 

Learn more about Census Business Builder!

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Student

Mariam

Justin is a student preparing to give a presentation about his local community. He is searching for a credible report that contains high level statistics to describe the community and visual aids that can be used in the presentation.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • The Narrative Profiles provide not only summary text, but also colorful tables and charts to illuminate key highlights.
  • They include popular topics, such as income, jobs, housing, age, and education.
  • They contain statistics for many geographies, such as states, counties, places/cities, and more.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • You prefer to view information in tables.
  • Narrative Profiles may not contain enough detail for your topic of interest.
  • The profiles contain only a subset of all ACS topics.

 

Go to Narrative Profiles now!

 

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Educator

Mariam

Gretchen wants information about a variety of topics, such as language spoken at home, disability, and age, to help figure out what kinds of services and staff they will need in her school district. She is also interested in seeing if these characteristics changed over time, and if these changes are statistically significant. Gretchen wants this high-level information in separate fact sheets on social, economic, demographic, and housing characteristics for her area.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • Profiles help novice users get acquainted with ACS data tables.
  • They provide estimates and percentages for many levels of geography.
  • The Comparison Profiles show yearly data side-by-side, indicating statistical significance between sets of estimates.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • These profiles may not contain enough detail for your topics of interest.
  • Data is not available for block groups.

 

Link to Data Profiles and to Comparison Profiles and choose your geography and dataset.

Tip: For more detailed topics or geographies, try Detailed Tables below.

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Veterans Coordinator

Mariam

Carlos is interested in veterans, including veterans status, period of service, employment status, and educational attainment, to help his organization provide information on Veterans Affairs medical services and job training programs. He would like the information on his topic in one table with numbers and percentages.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • Tables are available for most of the subjects in the ACS.
  • Subject Tables have more in-depth statistics on a particular subject than Data Profiles or Comparison Profiles.
  • They provide estimates and percentages for many levels of geography.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • Not all topics have a corresponding Subject Table.
  • These tables may not contain enough detail for your topics of interest.
  • Subject Tables are not available for block groups.

 

Browse available topics on our Subject Tables page. Use the single search bar or advanced search options to find your topic quickly.

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Market Analyst

Mariam

Thomas wants in-depth information about topics such as income, educational attainment, and household size, for his report on where to locate a large retail store. He's looking for the most detailed information the ACS provides on these topics.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • Detailed Tables are the most comprehensive ACS tables.
  • They cover all subjects in the ACS.
  • They are available for all areas, and also cover block group geographies since the 2009-2013 ACS 5-year release.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • Detailed Tables may contain more detail than needed for your topic.
  • They do not provide percentages (see Subject Tables above).
  • They do not contain block group level data prior to 2009-2013 ACS 5-year release. (See ACS Summary File for block group data prior to 2013.)

Browse the subjects covered by Detailed Tables and get links to the tables on data.census.gov.

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Media

Mariam

Tyson, a reporter for a local newspaper, is looking for a visual way to show trends in his community. He has some topics in mind that will be of interest to his readers, and hopes to be able to use available maps directly in his news reports.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • You wish to display American Community Survey data visually.
  • Tools are interactive and allow users to zoom in and select topics of interest.
  • Most of the maps can be shared.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • You prefer information in tabular format.
  • Geography selection is limited depending on the mapping tool.
  • They contain only a subset of ACS topics.

Use the TIGER/Line Shapefiles with Selected Demographic and Economic Data, which provides files in geodatabase format for GIS users to map selected ACS data. (Note: these products are only available from 2010 to 2022)

Visit Data.census.gov Resources to explore mapping capabilities on data.census.gov

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Health Administrator

Mariam

Benjamin wants to create his own tables of interest using Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files, but he does not have access to statistical software. He needs a free tool to create custom tabulations to plan for health care needs in his state.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • You do not have access to statistical software.
  • You need to create a custom table that is not available in data.census.gov.
  • You want to download a subset of the variables or geographic areas available in the PUMS files.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • Your table of interest is already pretabulated in data.census.gov.
  • You are interested in doing more complex statistical analysis.
  • The PUMS geography selection is limited to nation, region, division, state, and Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs).
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Regional Planner

Mariam

Marisa wants to do regional planning analysis using Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files, and she has expertise using statistical software. Marisa is an advanced data user who is comfortable working with untabulated records to do research projects.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • You are a skilled programmer with access to statistical software to do analysis (e.g. SAS, SPSS, STATA, R, Python.)
  • You need to create a custom table that is not available in data.census.gov.
  • You want to access a sample of actual ACS responses for the nation, a state, or a PUMA.

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • Your table of interest is already pretabulated in data.census.gov.
  • The PUMS geography selection is limited to the nation, region, division, state, and Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs).

 

Go to the ACS Public Use Microdata Sample page for PUMS files and supporting information.

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Developer

Mariam

Josefina wants to create mobile apps and custom widgets for her customers across a variety of topics. She is an experienced programmer, but appreciates the support that can be found in a community of developers and a well-documented dataset.

Why this tool may be right for you:

  • You are a skilled programmer.
  • You wish to create a data retrieval app for use on your own website or as a mobile app.
  • You want ACS data from 2005 through 2009 (not available on data.census.gov).

Why you may want to consider another tool:

  • You just want to download data, not create an app.
  • There is a learning curve to using the API.

Learn more about the Census Bureau's API by following the link below:

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Page Last Revised - July 24, 2025