The American Surveyor

GISuser Guide to Accessing Free 2002 TIGER/Line data

The US Census Bureau makes available the 2002 TGER/Line files for free download. 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. 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.

To access and download 2002 TIGER/Line® Files, please select a State on the map below.

Note: The image used to create this map was provided by the USGS

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