Is it Possible to Download ACS data at the Census Tract Level

Hi all,

I'm new to the ACS Discussion group and had a question about the possibility of downloading ACS data at the census tract level.  I'm initially interested in education level, households without a desktop or laptop, Without internet subscription, not using internet, income.  etc.

This information is available state by state here. Microsoft Power BI in table format and on a map.  

Is there a way to download entire US in 1 csv file?

Thanks,

Todd

Top Replies

Parents
  • There are 84,414 census tracts so usually you download data (ACS "B" detailed tables typically). for a single state or a single county within a state. The most effective way to do this is through the ACS "API" Application Programming interface. To do this you need some software.  I use R a free open source statistical analysis system.  There is a free graphical user interface (GUI) version called R Studio.  There are "add on" packages that can download census data using the API. I'm pretty sure that there are slide decks on the Census website www.census.gov/data/academy/webinars.html  There may be a webinar or slide deck that goes through doing this in R.  R has a package "tidycensus" walker-data.com/tidycensus/  I'm pretty sure that the package can be downloaded and installed from the main R website cran.r-project.org.  There are organizations that repackage ACS data and one of them my have csv files with tracts for an entire state. Many people from these organizations are members of this user group and they may be able to point you to another source for the files you need.

    Best of Luck !

    Dave Dorer

    "Preview" the tables you need for a single census tract using data.census.gov so you can find the tables that you need. There are several tables involving computer and internet availability.  I don't know if there are tables that also include education level.  If not you need to use the PUMS files, which definitely require a statistical analysis program/package to process those files.

Reply
  • There are 84,414 census tracts so usually you download data (ACS "B" detailed tables typically). for a single state or a single county within a state. The most effective way to do this is through the ACS "API" Application Programming interface. To do this you need some software.  I use R a free open source statistical analysis system.  There is a free graphical user interface (GUI) version called R Studio.  There are "add on" packages that can download census data using the API. I'm pretty sure that there are slide decks on the Census website www.census.gov/data/academy/webinars.html  There may be a webinar or slide deck that goes through doing this in R.  R has a package "tidycensus" walker-data.com/tidycensus/  I'm pretty sure that the package can be downloaded and installed from the main R website cran.r-project.org.  There are organizations that repackage ACS data and one of them my have csv files with tracts for an entire state. Many people from these organizations are members of this user group and they may be able to point you to another source for the files you need.

    Best of Luck !

    Dave Dorer

    "Preview" the tables you need for a single census tract using data.census.gov so you can find the tables that you need. There are several tables involving computer and internet availability.  I don't know if there are tables that also include education level.  If not you need to use the PUMS files, which definitely require a statistical analysis program/package to process those files.

Children