5-Yr PUMA Geography

Yes, in MDAT, for the 2022 5-year PUMS, you'll find PUMA information through two _variables_, not geographies. The PUMA10 variable identifies 2010 PUMA codes for respondents from 2018 through 2021. PUMA20 identifies 2020 PUMA codes for respondents from 2022. This two-variable system will most likely continue for 5-year PUMS until the 2026 release when, once again, the 5-year PUMS will use only one set of PUMA definitions for the entire 5-year period. (MDAT uses the same setup for the 2012 through 2015 5-year PUMS releases, which also used two sets of PUMA definitions.)

For IPUMS USA, we're working on providing PUMA codes for the 2022 5-year sample through a single "PUMA" variable (as we already do for the 2012 through 2015 5-year samples). We aim to release that update sometime in the next couple weeks. We have several other resources related to PUMAs and PUMA changes through our Geographic Tools & Resources page.

Update: IPUMS USA has now added PUMA identifiers to its version of the 2022 5-year sample through a single PUMA variable. Almost all the other geographic variables that we derive from PUMA information have also been added, identifying counties, cities, metropolitan areas, percent metro population, and metropolitan / principal city status (where possible).

We also extended three more geographic variables to both the 2022 1-year and 5-year samples: DENSITY, METPOP10, and HOMELAND. (We hadn't yet updated these for 2020 PUMAs, so unlike the other variables mentioned above, they weren't yet available in the 2022 1-year sample until today.)

While you work working on generating the single PUMA varialble, did you uncover any mislabeled 2020 PUMAs in the Census Bureau Reference Maps? 

In Arkansas, for example, 0500800 is labeled as "White, Lonoke & Woodruff Counties" but it does not include any part of Lonoke County, that not resides in 0500900.

It's not a huge deal, but I was hoping not to have to check and manually relabel all the PUMAs before we publish our data dashboard. 

To KatherinRPhillips: We didn't notice any PUMA naming issues, but IPUMS USA doesn't do much with PUMA names. In our versions of the microdata, we provide PUMA codes but not names. Out of curiosity, I looked into the naming issue you describe, and I agree that PUMA 0500800 is apparently misnamed. In the Census Bureau's relationship file between 2020 tracts and 2020 PUMAs, all of the tracts in Lonoke County (state 05, county 085) are in PUMA 0500900 and none are in 0500800.

Thanks for the quick response. Looks like I will have to hand check each label as I suspect the shape files contain the same issue.

In New York the names are very long.  My guess is they edited the PUMAs, but did not edit all of the names.  PUMAs now are almost always a set of tracts.  In the distant past they were created by Summary Level 80 which was tract split by place, but that summary level has been abandoned and is no longer used to report data.  Originally the PUMAs were not developed for mapping, and were not necessarily contiguous, in fact one PUMA in Will County Illinois was in as many as 50 parts.  Once the ACS was started and they were used for mapping they imposed stricter rules.  They are still created in cooperation with the state governments..

Andy

PUMA boundaries and names are defined by the states, specifically the SDCs. I don't think the names go through any kind of review, although I could be wrong about that.

At MCDC, we don't put much stock in PUMA names, either -- they're a convenience, but just aren't that relevant. PUMAs weren't even named until the 2010 census.

PUMA boundaries and names are defined by the states, specifically the SDCs. I don't think the names go through any kind of review, although I could be wrong about that.

At MCDC, we don't put much stock in PUMA names, either -- they're a convenience, but just aren't that relevant. PUMAs weren't even named until the 2010 census.

Before the advent of the ACS, PUMAs were mostly used for data analysis with no spatial reference.  They started in the 1990 Census.  Once the ACS was launched and the 65000 Threshold was adopted for release of the one year data, the PUMAs became the most deetailed complete coverage of the US that could be rleased.  P:laces are not a complete coverage, and only about 800 of 3200 counties are larger than 65K.  So they had defined PUMAs and decided to use them to Map the ACS, since they are larger tnan 100k and cover the entire country ( there are somewher around 2200 of them).  At that point how messy some of there were became apparent.  They had no names until 2010 ones, which were released in 2012.

Thanks Andrew, I'm already aware of this history. 

Here in Missouri, MCDC retrospectively gave names to the 2000 PUMAs for our state only.