The TIGER/Line shapefiles and related database files (.dbf) are an extract of selected geographic and cartographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). The MTDB represents a seamless national file with no overlaps or gaps between parts, however, each TIGER/Line shapefile is designed to stand alone as an independent data set, or they can be combined to cover the entire nation. Block Groups (BGs) are clusters of blocks within the same census tract. Each census tract contains at least one BG, and BGs are uniquely numbered within census tracts. BGs have a valid code range of 0 through 9. BGs have the same first digit of their 4-digit census block number from the same decennial census. For example, tabulation blocks numbered 3001, 3002, 3003,.., 3999 within census tract 1210.02 are also within BG 3 within that census tract. BGs coded 0 are intended to only include water area, no land area, and they are generally in territorial seas, coastal water, and Great Lakes water areas. Block groups generally contain between 600 and 3,000 people. A BG usually covers a contiguous area but never crosses county or census tract boundaries. They may, however, cross the boundaries of other geographic entities like county subdivisions, places, urban areas, voting districts, congressional districts, and American Indian / Alaska Native / Native Hawaiian areas. The BG boundaries in this release are those that were delineated as part of the Census Bureau's Participant Statistical Areas Program (PSAP) for the 2020 Census.
TIGER/Line Shapefile, 2021, State, American Samoa, Block Groups
The GeoServices REST Specification provides a way for Web clients to communicate with geographic information system (GIS) servers through Representational State Transfer (REST) technology.
The TIGER/Line Shapefiles are the fully supported, core geographic product from the U.S. Census Bureau. They are extracts of selected geographic and cartographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) database.
The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) Web Map Service interface standard (WMS) provides a simple HTTP interface for requesting geo-registered map images from our geospatial database. The response to the request is one or more geo-registered map images that can be displayed in a browser or WMS client application. By gaining access to our data through our WMS, users can produce maps containing TIGERweb layers combined with layers from other servers.