2014 Cartographic Boundary File, State for United States, 1:5,000,000

The 2014 cartographic boundary shapefiles are simplified representations of selected geographic areas from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). These boundary files are specifically designed for small-scale thematic mapping. When possible, generalization is performed with the intent to maintain the hierarchical relationships among geographies and to maintain the alignment of geographies within a file set for a given year. Geographic areas may not align with the same areas from another year. Some geographies are available as nation-based files while others are available only as state-based files.



States and equivalent entities are the primary governmental divisions of the United States. In addition to the fifty States, the Census Bureau treats the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and each of the Island Areas (American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) as the statistical equivalents of States for the purpose of data presentation.

Simple

Date (Publication)
201505-01-01

Cited responsible party

No information provided.
Purpose

These files were specifically created to support small-scale thematic mapping. To improve the appearance of shapes at small scales, areas are represented with fewer vertices than detailed TIGER/Line Shapefiles. Cartographic boundary files take up less disk space than their ungeneralized counterparts. Cartographic boundary files take less time to render on screen than TIGER/Line Shapefiles. You can join this file with table data downloaded from American FactFinder by using the AFFGEOID field in the cartographic boundary file. If detailed boundaries are required, please use the TIGER/Line Shapefiles instead of the generalized cartographic boundary files.

Point of contact

No information provided.
Maintenance and update frequency
Not planned

ISO 19115 Topic Categories

  • Boundaries

None

  • 2014

  • SHP

  • Cartographic Boundary

  • Generalized

  • State

ANSI INCITS 38:2009 (Formerly FIPS 5-2), ANSI INCITS 31:2009 (Formerly FIPS 6-4),ANSI INCITS 454:2009 (Formerly FIPS 8-6), ANSI INCITS 455:2009(Formerly FIPS 9-1), ANSI INCITS 446:2008 (Geographic Names Information System (GNIS))

  • United States

  • US
Access constraints
Other restrictions
Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints

Access Constraints: None
Other constraints

Use Constraints:The intended display scale for this file is 1:5,000,000. This file should not be displayed at scales larger than 1:5,000,000.



These products are free to use in a product or publication, however acknowledgement must be given to the U.S. Census Bureau as the source. The boundary information is for visual display at appropriate small scales only. Cartographic boundary files should not be used for geographic analysis including area or perimeter calculation. Files should not be used for geocoding addresses. Files should not be used for determining precise geographic area relationships.

Spatial representation type
Vector
Language

eng
Character set
8859 Part 1
Topic category
  • Boundaries
Environment description

The cartographic boundary files contain geographic data only and do not include display mapping software or statistical data. For information on how to use cartographic boundary file data with specific software package users shall contact the company that produced the software.

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Begin date
2015-05
End date
2015-05
Codespace

INCITS (formerly FIPS) codes
Geometric object type
Complex
Geometric object count
56
Distribution format
Name Version

SHP

html

Distributor

Fees

The online cartographic boundary files may be downloaded without charge.
Ordering instructions

To obtain more information about ordering Cartographic Boundary Files visit http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger.

OnLine resource
Protocol Linkage Name
http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2014/shp/cb_2014_us_state_5m.zip

Shapefile Zip File
OnLine resource
Protocol Linkage Name
http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger-cart-boundary.html

Cartographic Boundary Shapefiles
Hierarchy level
Dataset

Absolute external positional accuracy

Name of measure

Horizontal Positional Accuracy
Evaluation method description

Data are not accurate. Data are generalized representations of geographic boundaries at 1:5,000,000.

Quantitative result

gml:BaseUnit
meters
Value
Missing

Completeness omission

Evaluation method description

The cartographic boundary files are generalized representations of extracts taken from the MAF/TIGER Database. Generalized boundary files are clipped to a simplified version of the U.S. outline. As a result, some off-shore areas may be excluded from the generalized files. Some small holes or discontiguous parts of areas are not included in generalized files.

Conceptual consistency

Measure description

The Census Bureau performed automated tests to ensure logical consistency of the source database. Segments making up the outer and inner boundaries of a polygon tie end-to-end to completely enclose the area. All polygons were tested for closure. The Census Bureau uses its internally developed geographic update system to enhance and modify spatial and attribute data in the Census MAF/TIGER database. Standard geographic codes, such as INCITS (formerly FIPS) codes for states, counties, municipalities, county subdivisions, places, American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian areas, and congressional districts are used when encoding spatial entities. The Census Bureau performed spatial data tests for logical consistency of the codes during the compilation of the original Census MAF/TIGER database files. Feature attribute information has been examined but has not been fully tested for consistency.



For the cartographic boundary files, the Point and Vector Object Count for the G-polygon SDTS Point and Vector Object Type reflects the number of records in the file's data table. For multi-polygon features, only one attribute record exists for each multi-polygon rather than one attribute record per individual G-polygon component of the multi-polygon feature. Cartographic Boundary File multi-polygons are an exception to the G-polygon object type classification. Therefore, when multi-polygons exist in a file, the object count will be less than the actual number of G-polygons.

Description

Spatial data were extracted from the MAF/TIGER database and processed through a U.S. Census Bureau batch generalization system.
Date / Time
2015-04-30T00:00:00
Description

Geo-spatial Relational Database
Title

MAF/TIGER
Date (Revision)
201505-01-01
Included with dataset
Yes
Title

Feature Catalog for the 2014 State 1:5,000,000 Cartographic Boundary File
Date (Publication)

Cited responsible party

No information provided.
Other citation details

http://meta.geo.census.gov/data/existing/decennial/GEO/CPMB/boundary/2014gz/state_5m/2014_state_5m.ea.iso.xml

Metadata

File identifier
cb_2014_us_state_5m.shp.iso.xml XML
Metadata language

eng
Character set
8859 Part 1
Parent identifier
Series Information for the 2014 Cartographic Boundary File, State , 1:5,000,000

Series Information for the 2014 Cartographic Boundary File, State , 1:5,000,000
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Date stamp
2018-05-03T17:14:22
Metadata standard name

ISO 19115:2003/19139
Metadata standard version

1.0

Metadata author

No information provided.
Dataset URI

http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2014/shp/cb_2014_us_state_5m.zip

 
 

Overviews

overview
Thumbnail in PNG format from GeoServer WMS GetMap request

Spatial extent

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Keywords

ISO 19115 Topic Categories

Boundaries
None

2014 Cartographic Boundary Generalized SHP State


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Associated resources

Not available