The GSS Program provides support and maintenance of the geographic and cartographic infrastructure necessary for the Census Bureau's data collection, processing, tabulation, and dissemination programs for the United States and its territories.

Mission areas supported by the GSS Program include:

• Maintenance of the Master Address File/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) System
• Collection and assignment of addresses to geographic locations
• Identification, collection, delineation, and maintenance of geographic entities and their boundaries
• Preparation and maintenance of maps that support data collection and dissemination of Census Bureau data
• Development and maintenance of partnerships with tribal, federal, state, and local governments and commercial entities for the acquisition of address and mapping data
• Coordination of federal and international geospatial activities with other federal agencies and the appropriate international groups

The Geographic Support System (GSS) Program has been successful at acquiring, evaluating, and incorporating current, high-quality address and road data from 1,459 partners that encompass 38,160 governmental entities, 88.8 percent of the housing units, and 89.0 percent of the population in the 2010 Census.

Initially, the primary goal of the GSS Program was to conduct outreach and acquire address and road centerline spatial data for governments covering the 50 states, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico over the first five years of the program from 2013 through 2017.

Governments that registered to participate in Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) by the operation  deadline were not included in the set of governments to be approached for the 2018 GSS Program (i.e., GSS Universe).  Some governments that had provided data early but subsequently signed up for LUCA remain in the 2018 GSS Universe.

Below, you will find a set of outreach and acquisition status maps. The map dated September 30, 2017 shows where the Census Bureau conducted outreach to governments for the period October 1, 2013 to September 30, 2017.

The map dated September 28, 2018 shows the governments from which the Census Bureau acquired address data for the period October 1, 2013 to September 28, 2018.

The map dated August 17, 2018 shows the governments from which the Census Bureau conducted outreach to and acquired data for the period October 1, 2017 to August 17, 2018.