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Census Layers

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The US Census data layers are available from MassGIS. The portion for Newton was clipped for internal staff use. The statewide layer can be downloaded at the same website. The description below is from the MassGIS web site:

MassGIS has processed a portion of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 data release for Massachusetts in order to assist GIS users who may need access to these demographic-related datasets. These data are only suitable for use with Census 2010 products and should NOT be linked to geography or tables from the Census 2000 release.

Census geographic areas, or units, are used by the Bureau to collect and tabulate decennial census data. Three levels are available from MassGIS (with layer name in parentheses) in the following hierarchy:

  • Blocks (CENSUS2010BLOCKS_POLY) - bounded on all sides by visible features, such as streets, roads, streams, and railroad tracks, and by non-visible boundaries such as city, town, township, and county limits, and short line-of-sight extensions of streets and roads. Often the size of a city block in urban areas; their size varies in other parts of the state.
  • Block Groups (CENSUS2010BLOCKGROUPS_POLY) - clusters of blocks within the same census tract that have the same first digit of their 4-digit census block number.
  • Tracts (CENSUS2010TRACTS_POLY) - clusters of block groups which generally have a total population size between 1,200 and 8,000 people with an optimum size of 4,000 people.

Note that the "POP100_RE" fields store the 100% population count as listed in the PL-94-171 demographics tables (the 'RE' in the field name stands for 'redistricting'). The housing unit counts ("HU100_RE") were generated from the same PL-94-171 tables.

For more information on Census geography, see The US Census data website.

Related tables from the Census Bureau’s Summary File 1 are also available. These link to the GIS files with the LOGECNO field. MassGIS created "user-friendly" subsets of these tables: dBase tables (32 MB) | Access 2003 databases (26 MB)

Last Updated: April, 2012