ACS data download at zip code level

Assuming you already know which table(s) you want, you can get ZCTA (ZIP Code Tabulation Areas) for 2016 5 year ACS by
going to Factfinder.Census.gov,
clicking on "advanced search",
then "show me all",
then click "Geographies" on the left side,
select "5 Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Area- 860" (ZCTA) (ignore that fact that "5 digit ZIP code" is an option, as it is not available for ACS and therefore won't give you any options to select ACS data if you choose it),
then select "ALL 5 Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Areas in the United States and Puerto Rico",
click the "Add to your selections" button,
click close (for the geographic selection window).

You will then see ALL the tables available, and you can filter these by entering a "topic or table name".

I would suggest that you play around using a smaller set of ZCTAs (like all within a county or a smaller state) before you try downloading ALL of them, just so you can explore the file download options and make sure you can open it and get what you expect in the program you are going to read it into. All or which will be less unwieldy with a smaller data set.

Assuming you already know which table(s) you want, you can get ZCTA (ZIP Code Tabulation Areas) for 2016 5 year ACS by
going to Factfinder.Census.gov,
clicking on "advanced search",
then "show me all",
then click "Geographies" on the left side,
select "5 Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Area- 860" (ZCTA) (ignore that fact that "5 digit ZIP code" is an option, as it is not available for ACS and therefore won't give you any options to select ACS data if you choose it),
then select "ALL 5 Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Areas in the United States and Puerto Rico",
click the "Add to your selections" button,
click close (for the geographic selection window).

You will then see ALL the tables available, and you can filter these by entering a "topic or table name".

I would suggest that you play around using a smaller set of ZCTAs (like all within a county or a smaller state) before you try downloading ALL of them, just so you can explore the file download options and make sure you can open it and get what you expect in the program you are going to read it into. All or which will be less unwieldy with a smaller data set.

More about ZCTAs here: www.census.gov/.../zctas.html

Hi Peter,

I am not able to find ZCTA geography level data via API (base URL: api.census.gov/.../acs1)
However, I do see the data at ZCTA level on factfinder website.
Is this not available via API?

But I could see the data at ZCTA level for ACS 5 year Detailed tables - 2011 (https://api.census.gov/data/2011/acs/acs5)

Did they discontinue ZCTA level data API after that?
Could you please help me here.

ZCTAs are not included in the 1-year data release, because only ~250 ZCTAs (out of ~33000) surpass the 65,000 population threshold required for inclusion in the 1-year data release.

Change "acs1" to "acs5" in your example and you should have better results.

HI Joe,

Thanks for your inputs.
I could see data at ZCTA level for 5 year estimates.

Regards,
Shiva

Hi Joe,

I have one more question.
Is it possible to retrieve data of all the features (called variables in the website. Example: B01001_001E) in one API call.
As of now, I guess, we need to call API one by one for each variable.

For example, Below API call retrieves total population estimate (B01001_001E) for ZCTA=33141
api.census.gov/.../acs5

But if I replace B01001_001E with wildcard * to retrieve data for all variables, it does not work.
I understand if we use *, there will be lot of data. But is this not supported?
Could you please help me here?

Thanks & Regards,
Shiva

I'm afraid I'm not extremely experienced using the API; perhaps someone else here can advise?

I lead a project called Census Reporter, which provides an alternative web presentation for the current ACS (that is, there's no historic data, and each year, we update it when new ACS data is released) -- we have an API which was designed for our own needs, but we welcome public access to the API, as long as their use doesn't interfere with our ability to run our site, which mostly manifests as an upper limit to the number of geographies which are returned in a single query.

You can get all variables for a single table from our site, for about 3500 geographies at a time. (I can't remember exactly where the threshold is set.) For example, this is all of B01001 for ZCTA 33141 api.censusreporter.org/.../latest

See github.com/.../API.md for more information.

Hi Peter,

I am very new to ACS. I followed your way to download the zip code level data from 2011-2017. Do you have any idea where I could download the summary data at the zip code tabulation level for 2004-2010? Thank you very much!

Hi Peter,

I am trying to follow these steps on the new census.data.gov site, but I can't seem to find the right filter to get to a zip code/zcta option - any ideas?

Thanks,

Olivia

Olivia:

I've found that if you have the wrong set of filters on data.census.gov, it can prevent you from adding ZCTAs. This always seems to happen to me if I choose a table suggestion directly from the search box at data.census.gov/cedsci

What has worked for me is to go to the "tables" page  (you may get there if you click "search" or type return instead of accepting a suggestion).  Then, on that page, you should see "filter" near the top of the sidebar on the left. Click on that, and navigate as in the screenshot:

If when you get to "Zip Code Tabulation Area (Five-Digit)" you don't see options as in the screenshot, check "selected filters" below. Remove any that you don't actually need, as they seem to sometimes prevent the option from appearing -- or remove them all so that you can choose "all ZCTAs in the United States" and then, after that, build up the rest of the filters you need.

Hope that helps!

Thanks Joe. I'm saving this tip!