U.S. Census Bureau


Picture of Census Bureau Tiger 2005 Second Edition TIGER/Line® Files


The 2005 Second Edition TIGER/Line files have been superseded by the 2006 First Edition TIGER/Line files and have been removed from the Census Bureau's Internet site. See the TIGER page for available versions.


The TIGER/Line files are extracts of selected geographic and cartographic information from the Census Bureau's TIGER® (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) database.




The 2005 Second Edition TIGER/Line files are the second of two versions of the TIGER/Line files that contain 2005 geographic boundaries. The Census Bureau is releasing the 2005 Second Edition TIGER/Line files by county or statistically equivalent entity based on the latest available governmental unit boundaries (generally January 1, 2005). This version of the TIGER/Line files contains updates after January 1, 2004 for some legal entities. The 2005 Second Edition TIGER/Line file coverage is as follows: all counties, parishes, boroughs, census areas and equivalent entities for each state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas.

The 2005 Second Edition TIGER/Line files contain realigned street feature coordinates that have progressed through the MAF/TIGER Accuracy Improvement Project. The Census Bureau is providing two lists of counties with realigned street features, counties with realigned street features in the 2005 Second Edition TIGER/Line files and a consolidated list of counties with realigned street features. Except for those counties with realigned street features, the 2005 Second Edition TIGER/Line files contain very few updates to street features or address ranges from the Census 2000 versions of the TIGER/Line files.

The TIGER 1-Cell Source Code (SOURCEID) in Record Type M identifies the source for each line segment and provides the link between the TIGER/Line files and the source and horizontal spatial accuracy information in the county based metadata. Please note that the horizontal spatial accuracy, where reported in the metadata, refers only to the realigned street features identified as matched to the positionally accurate source file with that accuracy. It is not the spatial accuracy of the TIGER/Line file as a whole.

109th Congressional Districts
On Record Type A the Congressional District Code, Current field of the 2005 Second Edition TIGER/Line files contains the 109th Congressional Districts. Note: In a few cases the boundaries of the 109th Congressional districts do not follow Census 2000 block boundaries. Where the boundary of a congressional district for the 109th Congress splits a Census 2000 block, the Census Bureau's maps and TIGER/Line files depict the correct location of the boundary. For data tabulation purposes, that census block is allocated in its entirety to the 109th Congressional District specified to the Census Bureau by the state. This list provides all the 109th Congressional Districts that split census blocks and shows the congressional district where the block is allocated for data tabulation.

No Changes to the File Structure
The Census Bureau has not made any changes to the format or record layout for the 2005 Second Edition TIGER/Line files. That is, the record layout of the 2005 Second Edition TIGER/Line files is identical to the record layout of the 2005 First Edition TIGER/Line files.




THE CENSUS BUREAU'S TIGER/LINE PRODUCT
DOES NOT CONTAIN
DEMOGRAPHIC DATA OR MAPPING SOFTWARE



File Overview

There is one TIGER/Line file (in a compressed format) for each county or county equivalent. The file names consist of TGR + the 2-digit state FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) code + the 3-digit county FIPS code (i.e. TGR01031.ZIP for Coffee County, Alabama.) Each state folder contains individual county files as well as a Counts file. The county files are stored in compressed format and are compatible with PK Ware's PK Zip software. The COUNTSnn.TXT files (where "nn" is the state FIPS code) show the counts for the number of records for each record type by county for a state. If the count for a particular record type is 0, then that record type does not exist for that county.

The Census Bureau produces the TIGER/Line files in ASCII text format only; therefore, the data are NOT in the form of map images. To create maps with the TIGER/Line files, one would typically use a Geographic Information System (GIS) package or other mapping software.

Users are responsible for converting or translating the files into a format used by their specific software package. For information on how to use the TIGER/Line data with a specific software package one should contact the company that produced that software. For information on companies that sell products that use TIGER/Line data or that provide TIGER/Line related services, refer to the TIGER Vendor List.


Documentation

To fully comprehend the content of these files, please read the following documents before downloading:

If you have questions about the Census Bureau's TIGER/Line files, please contact the Geography Division at geo.tiger@census.gov .


[PDF] or PDF denotes a file in Adobe’s Portable Document Format. To view the file, you will need the Adobe® Acrobat® Reader This link to a non-federal Web site does not imply endorsement of any particular product, company, or content. available free from Adobe.


Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Geography Division
Created: June 26, 2006