Monday, February 15, 2010

Download Free 2009 Census Tiger / Line GIS Shapefile Layers

It used to be that the Census Tiger / Line files were difficult to work with, requiring specialized software to convert into a format that most GIS programs could work with. The last two years the U.S. Census Bureau has made them available in shapefile format saving us a ton of work. Here's a brief description of the shapefiles. If you are new to GIS, check out our free Learn2Map GIS Tutorial and Atlas. We also have listed many free GIS software programs that you can use to create maps with the Tiger / Line Shapefiles.

* TIGER/Line®Shapefiles are spatial extracts from the Census Bureau's MAF/TIGER database, containing features such as roads, railroads, rivers, as well as legal and statistical geographic areas.

* TIGER/Line®Shapefiles are made available to the public for no charge and are typically used to provide the digital map base for a Geographic Information System or for mapping software.

* TIGER/Line®Shapefiles are designed for use with geographic information system (GIS) software. The TIGER/Line®Shapefiles do not include demographic data, but they contain geographic entity codes that can be linked to the Census Bureau’s demographic data, available on American FactFinder.

Download the U.S. Census Tiger / Line GIS Shapefiles.


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