2015 Cartographic Boundary File, State-County for United States, 1:500,000

Dataset Identification:

Resource Abstract:
The 2015 cartographic boundary shapefiles are simplified representations of selected geographic areas from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). These boundary files are specifically designed for small-scale thematic mapping. When possible, generalization is performed with the intent to maintain the hierarchical relationships among geographies and to maintain the alignment of geographies within a file set for a given year. Geographic areas may not align with the same areas from another year. Some geographies are available as nation-based files while others are available only as state-based files.The primary legal divisions of most states are termed counties. In Louisiana, these divisions are known as parishes. In Alaska, which has no counties, the equivalent entities are the organized boroughs, city and boroughs, municipalities, and for the unorganized area, census areas. The latter are delineated cooperatively for statistical purposes by the State of Alaska and the Census Bureau. In four states (Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia), there are one or more incorporated places that are independent of any county organization and thus constitute primary divisions of their states. These incorporated places are known as independent cities and are treated as equivalent entities for purposes of data presentation. The District of Columbia and Guam have no primary divisions, and each area is considered an equivalent entity for purposes of data presentation. The Census Bureau treats the following entities as equivalents of counties for purposes of data presentation: Municipios in Puerto Rico, Districts and Islands in American Samoa, Municipalities in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The entire area of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island Areas is covered by counties or equivalent entities.
Citation
Title 2015 Cartographic Boundary File, State-County for United States, 1:500,000
publication  Date   201603
Keywords:
Theme keywords ( theme ):
Boundaries
thesaurus name >
Title ISO 19115 Topic Categories
Theme keywords ( theme ):
2015
SHP
Borough
Cartographic Boundary
Census Area
City
City and Borough
County
County equivalent
District
Generalized
Independent City
Island
Municipality
Municipio
Parish
State
thesaurus name >
Title None
Location keywords:
United States
US
thesaurus name >
Title ANSI INCITS 38:2009 (Formerly FIPS 5-2), ANSI INCITS 31:2009 (Formerly FIPS 6-4),ANSI INCITS 454:2009 (Formerly FIPS 8-6), ANSI INCITS 455:2009(Formerly FIPS 9-1), ANSI INCITS 446:2008 (Geographic Names Information System (GNIS))
purpose:
These files were specifically created to support small-scale thematic mapping. To improve the appearance of shapes at small scales, areas are represented with fewer vertices than detailed TIGER/Line Shapefiles. Cartographic boundary files take up less disk space than their ungeneralized counterparts. Cartographic boundary files take less time to render on screen than TIGER/Line Shapefiles. You can join this file with table data downloaded from American FactFinder by using the AFFGEOID field in the cartographic boundary file. If detailed boundaries are required, please use the TIGER/Line Shapefiles instead of the generalized cartographic boundary files.
Resource language:  eng
Character set encoding of resource:  UTF-8
Resource progress code:  completed
Resource Maintenance Information
maintenance or update frequency:  notPlanned
Constraints on resource usage:
Legal Constraints
Access Constraints  otherRestrictions
use constraint:  otherRestrictions
Other constraints
Access Constraints: None
Other constraints
Use Constraints:The intended display scale for this file is 1:500,000. This file should not be displayed at scales larger than 1:500,000. These products are free to use in a product or publication, however acknowledgement must be given to the U.S. Census Bureau as the source. The boundary information is for visual display at appropriate small scales only. Cartographic boundary files should not be used for geographic analysis including area or perimeter calculation. Files should not be used for geocoding addresses. Files should not be used for determining precise geographic area relationships.
Spatial representation type code:  vector
Processing environment:  The cartographic boundary files contain geographic data only and do not include display mapping software or statistical data. For information on how to use cartographic boundary file data with specific software package users shall contact the company that produced the software.
Spatial resolution:
representative resolution scale:
Scale denominator: 500000
Resource extent
Geographic Extent
Geographic Bounding Box
westBoundLongitude  -179.148909
eastBoundLongitude  179.77847
northBoundLatitude  71.365162
southBoundLatitude  -14.548699
Temporal Extent
publication date 2016-03 2016-03
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Vector spatial representation information

Geometric Objects
geometric Object Type  complex
geometric Object Count  3233
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Content information: feature catalog description

Included With Dataset  true
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Reference system information

Reference System Identifier
Identifier string: 
Identifier code space:  INCITS (formerly FIPS) codes
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Scope of quality information
scope level  dataset
Resource lineage description
Processing Step
date and time 2016-03-01T00:00:00
description Spatial data were extracted from the MAF/TIGER database and processed through a U.S. Census Bureau batch generalization system.
source
source description  Geo-spatial Relational Database
source citation
Title Census MAF/TIGER database
alternateTitle  MAF/TIGER
The dates describe the effective date of 2015 cartographic boundaries.  Date   20150101
other Citation Details  Source Contribution: All spatial and feature data
cited responsible party - originator
organisation Name  U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division, Geographic Customer Services Branch
AbsoluteExternalPositionalAccuracy
name Of Measure Horizontal Positional Accuracy
measure Description  
evaluation Method Description  Data are not accurate. Data are generalized representations of geographic boundaries at 1:500,000.
Quantitative Result
result value Missing
value Units
Completeness Commission
Completeness Omission
evaluation Method Description  The cartographic boundary files are generalized representations of extracts taken from the MAF/TIGER Database. Generalized boundary files are clipped to a simplified version of the U.S. outline. As a result, some off-shore areas may be excluded from the generalized files. Some small geographic areas, holes, or discontiguous parts of areas may not be included in generalized files if they are not visible at the target scale.
ConceptualConsistency
measure Description  The Census Bureau performed automated tests to ensure logical consistency of the source database. Segments making up the outer and inner boundaries of a polygon tie end-to-end to completely enclose the area. All polygons were tested for closure. The Census Bureau uses its internally developed geographic update system to enhance and modify spatial and attribute data in the Census MAF/TIGER database. Standard geographic codes, such as INCITS (formerly FIPS) codes for states, counties, municipalities, county subdivisions, places, American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian areas, and congressional districts are used when encoding spatial entities. The Census Bureau performed spatial data tests for logical consistency of the codes during the compilation of the original Census MAF/TIGER database files. Feature attribute information has been examined but has not been fully tested for consistency.For the cartographic boundary files, the Point and Vector Object Count for the G-polygon SDTS Point and Vector Object Type reflects the number of records in the file's data table. For multi-polygon features, only one attribute record exists for each multi-polygon rather than one attribute record per individual G-polygon component of the multi-polygon feature. Cartographic Boundary File multi-polygons are an exception to the G-polygon object type classification. Therefore, when multi-polygons exist in a file, the object count will be less than the actual number of G-polygons.

Resource distribution information

Distributor
Standard ordering process
fees The online cartographic boundary files may be downloaded without charge.
Ordering Instructions  To obtain more information about ordering Cartographic Boundary Files visit http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger.
Format
Format name SHP
Format version 
file Decompression Technique  The cartographic boundary files contain geographic data only and do not include display mapping software or statistical data. For information on how to use cartographic boundary file data with specific software package users shall contact the company that produced the software.
Format
Format name html
Format version 
Digital Transfer Options
Linkage for online resource
name Shapefile Zip File
URL: http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2015/shp/cb_2015_us_county_500k.zip
Digital Transfer Options
Linkage for online resource
name Cartographic Boundary Shapefiles
URL: http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger-cart-boundary.html
Description Simplified representations of selected geographic areas from the Census Bureau's MAF/TIGER geographic database
Digital Transfer Options
Linkage for online resource
name Feature Catalog for the 2015 State-County 1:500,000
URL: http://meta.geo.census.gov/data/existing/decennial/GEO/CPMB/boundary/2016gz/county_500/cb_2015_us_county_500k.shp.ea.iso.xml
Description The Entity and Attribute file

Metadata data stamp:  2016-03
Resource Maintenance Information
maintenance or update frequency:  notPlanned
notes: This was transformed from the Census Metadata Import Format
Metadata scope code  dataset
Metadata language  eng
Metadata character set encoding:   UTF-8
Metadata standard for this record:  ISO 19115 Geographic Information - Metadata
standard version:  2009-02-15
Metadata record identifier:  cb_2015_us_county_500k.shp.iso.xml
URI for dataset described: > http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2015/shp

Metadata record format is ISO19139-2 XML (MI_Metadata)