How to find complex geographies on data.census.gov, per Census trainers

Noemi Mendez, a data dissemination specialist at the U.S. Census Bureau's Center for Enterprise Dissemination, opened the session by explaining the distinction between geographic entities (named areas and boundaries) and summary levels (three-digit codes that denote geographic scale). "So I'm gonna talk about geographic entities versus summary levels," she said, and walked through the data.census.gov interface so users can select either alphabetical geographic entities or numerical summary levels to drill down to finer units.

Mendez demonstrated a concrete example: to see how much of Kansas City, Missouri falls within each county she switched to summary level 155 (county within place), selected Missouri and Kansas City, and used table B01001 (population by age) to load results and the map identify tool. On the example map she identified the Clay, Jackson and Cass county parts of Kansas City and showed the table rows that list the parts. She also cautioned users that some summary levels and geographies are only available for specific censuses or surveys and that names are reused across jurisdictions, so users should confirm the geography covering the area they intend to analyze.

Mendez closed by pointing users to follow-up resources and workshops from the Census Bureau for practice and additional help.