Census Data: Decennial Census

Aggregated Data

Decennial Census data is available from a variety of resources, however you may want to consult the Technical documentation for the Census, including the survey instruments and questionnaires for all censuses since 1790.

I am in a hurry: Social Explorer

  • What can you get - Social Explorer contains variable summaries from every census from 1790 (there are other data resources available as well)
  • What works well - Social Explorer has a relatively easy interface and table builder for creating data extracts.  There is also a map based data browse interface for data exploration and simple map making. 
  • What does not work well - Not all variables and crosstabs are availabe from the category browser. 

Advanced search from data.census.gov

  • What can you get - Variable summaries and crosstabs for all geogroahies for censuses starting in 2000
  • What works well - Contains cross tabs and pre-made tables of popular variables.  Free for all to use. 
  • What does not work well - Interface can be difficult to use, limited number of surveys available. 

NHGIS

  • What can you get - Variable summaries from every census from 1790 at a wide variety of geographies.
  • What works well - Relatively easy to use table table builder. Can build tables for a variety of years at once.  Free for all to use. 
  • What does not work well - Not all variables and crosstabs are availabe from the category browser. 

Diversity and Disparities

  • What can you get
  • What works well
  • What does not work well

 

Microdata

 

IPUMS USA

  • What can you get - samples from every census from 1790 (including complete count data for 1790-1940).
  • What works well   - the most comprehensive resource for creating microdata samples, free and relativley easy to use
  • What does not work well - this is a strongly reccommended resources, however this process is inherently complex.  Note that there are tutorials available on Youtube

Data.census.gov also has a microdata portal in beta version

  • What can you get  - Samples from 2010 forward
  • What works well
  • What does not work well

AncestryLibrary.com

  • What can you get  - Scanned survey sheets from historical censuses from 1790-1950
  • What works well
  • What does not work well - This is not a resource for extracting datasets, but rather a genalogical tool for finding information on individuals and households.