This data set is a U.S. continental level compilation of The U.S. Census Bureau's 2000 5-Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs). A ZIP Code tabulation area (ZCTA) is a statistical geographic entity that approximates the delivery area for a U.S. Postal Service five-digit or three-digit ZIP Code. ZCTAs are aggregations of census blocks that have the same predominant ZIP Code associated with the addresses in the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File (MAF). Three-digit ZCTA codes are applied to large contiguous areas for which the U.S. Census Bureau does not have five-digit ZIP Code information in its MAF. ZCTAs do not precisely depict ZIP Code delivery areas, and do not include all ZIP Codes used for mail delivery. The U.S. Census Bureau has established ZCTAs as a new geographic entity similar to, but replacing, data tabulations for ZIP Codes undertaken in conjunction with the 1990 and earlier censuses.
For use with the GEOSTAC database, this data set was compiled in order to simplify pesticide risk assessment and provide a common data set for all stakeholders.
For additional informaiton regarding The U.S. Census Bureau's 2000 5-Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Areas, or to obtain the original source data sets, visit: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cob/zt_metadata.html#meta.
publication date
The U.S. Census Bureau's 2000 5-Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Areas files are primarily designed for small scale, thematic mapping applications at a target scale range of 1:500,000 to 1:5,000,000. These files should not be used for geocoding; Some offshore, redundant, zero population and housing land areas may be absent from the files; Cartographic Boundary files are not necessarily vertically integrated with previous boundary file sets. ZIP Code Tabulation Areas do not precisely depict ZIP Code delivery areas, and do not include all ZIP Codes used for mail delivery.
897-B Harrison Street, S.E.
Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, Geography Division, 2000.
The The U.S. Census Bureau's 2000 5-Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Area boundary files are a generalized extract from the U.S. Census Bureau's TIGER database. Line simplification/smoothing was performed with a tolerance of 0.005 decimal degrees and a coordinate reduction using the Douglas-Peucker method with a tolerance of 0.0003 decimal degrees. Very small polygons were eliminated when the combination of geographic codes existed elsewhere. The geography was clipped back to the shoreline of the United States, in contrast to TIGER/Line® which shows the full extent of geography out to the 3-mile limit. These generalized cartographic boundary files are originally produced to support the spatial geographic infrastructure for certain mapping functions within the Census Bureau's American Fact Finder and in support of the LandView Geographic Data Viewer. The generalized files have a much smaller file size than the original file extraction from the Census Bureau's TIGER database, resulting in faster download and processing times.
Import original source state level data sets from their native ArcGIS shapefile file format into ArcGIS geodatabase feature class file format.
Append individual state level data sets to produce one national level data set covering the continental U.S.
Project national level data set to Albers Equal Area and NAD 83 datum.
Dissolve on fields: NAME, ZTCA, LSAD, LSAD_TRANS, using Geoprocessing Tool, DISSOLVE, in order to eliminate redundant data.
Dataset copied.
Area of feature in internal units squared.
ESRI
Internal feature number.
ESRI
Feature geometry.
ESRI
Zip Code Tabulation Code
US Census Bureau
Length of feature in internal units.
ESRI
1500 Research Parkway, Suite B223
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Data can be downloaded from www.geostac.org with a registered user ID and password provided by the Spatial Sciences Laboratory.
Not Applicable
897-B Harrison Street, S.E.