The Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS) provides eligible governments, which include tribal, state, and general-purpose local governments, an opportunity to review the Census Bureau’s legal boundary data to confirm the Census Bureau has the correct boundary, name, and status information. BAS also allows participants to review and provide updates to census designated places (CDPs) and linear features. Maintaining correct boundaries helps make sure that the Census Bureau assigns the appropriate housing and population counts to each government. Title 13, Section 6, United States Code authorizes this survey.

The federal government allocates more than $2.8 trillion in federal funds annually for health, welfare, infrastructure, education, and other federal programs and services. Maintaining correct boundaries helps make sure that the Census Bureau assigns the appropriate housing and population counts to each government so that governments receive funds appropriately and have the best data available for decision-making.

BAS fulfills the agency’s responsibility as part of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, for which the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A–16 designates the Census Bureau as the lead federal agency for maintaining national data about legal government boundaries, as well as administrative and statistical boundaries. BAS supports the geospatial data steward responsibilities of the Geospatial Data Act, the Evidence Act, OMB E-Gov, the Federal Geographic Data Committee, Data.gov, GeoPlatform.gov, the National Map, the Geographic Names Information System, and the Geospatial One-Stop.

For information on how the Census Bureau collects and maintains American Indian areas, see the American Indian and Alaska Native Programs webpage.

Visit the Information for Respondents webpage or Contact Us for questions on reporting boundary updates to the Census Bureau.