U.S. Census Bureau Geographic Support: A Response to Changing Technology and Improved Data‪.‬

Introduction The Geography Division of the U.S. Census Bureau, through its TIGER system, provides critical geographic support for all agency censuses and surveys. Traditionally, the three general areas of support have been: geographic reference files (relating collection and tabulation geography to specific areas on the ground that result in complete coverage); address reference files (for controlling questionnaire delivery, geographic coverage, and data tabulation); and maps (for data collection field operations and use with tabulated statistical data). These three basic functions are interrelated, and a change to one usually has impact on at least one of the other functions. In the early 1980s, the U.S. Census Bureau determined that the best way to ensure consistency among reference files and maps was to create and maintain a single source file that served all geographic support activities. The result was the TIGER (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) System (Marx 1986).