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2015 Cartographic Boundary File, Urban Area-State-County for Pennsylvania, 1:500,000

Metadata Updated: January 13, 2021

The 2015 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.

The records in this file allow users to map the parts of Urban Areas that overlap a particular county.

After each decennial census, the Census Bureau delineates urban areas that represent densely developed territory, encompassing residential, commercial, and other nonresidential urban land uses. In general, this territory consists of areas of high population density and urban land use resulting in a representation of the "urban footprint." There are two types of urban areas: urbanized areas (UAs) that contain 50,000 or more people and urban clusters (UCs) that contain at least 2,500 people, but fewer than 50,000 people (except in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam which each contain urban clusters with populations greater than 50,000). Each urban area is identified by a 5-character numeric census code that may contain leading zeroes.

The primary legal divisions of most states are termed counties. In Louisiana, these divisions are known as parishes. In Alaska, which has no counties, the equivalent entities are the organized boroughs, city and boroughs, municipalities, and for the unorganized area, census areas. The latter are delineated cooperatively for statistical purposes by the State of Alaska and the Census Bureau. In four states (Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia), there are one or more incorporated places that are independent of any county organization and thus constitute primary divisions of their states. These incorporated places are known as independent cities and are treated as equivalent entities for purposes of data presentation. The District of Columbia and Guam have no primary divisions, and each area is considered an equivalent entity for purposes of data presentation. The Census Bureau treats the following entities as equivalents of counties for purposes of data presentation: Municipios in Puerto Rico, Districts and Islands in American Samoa, Municipalities in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The entire area of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island Areas is covered by counties or equivalent entities.

The boundaries for counties and equivalent entities are as of January 1, 2010.

Access & Use Information

License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Collection

This dataset is part of the following collection:

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Date 2016-03
Metadata Created Date January 13, 2021
Metadata Updated Date January 13, 2021
Reference Date(s) 201603 (publication)
Frequency Of Update notPlanned

Metadata Source

Harvested from 2016_county_within_ua_500

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Date 2016-03
Metadata Created Date January 13, 2021
Metadata Updated Date January 13, 2021
Reference Date(s) 201603 (publication)
Responsible Party Unknown
Contact Email
Guid cb_2015_42_county_within_ua_500k.shp.iso.xml
Access Constraints Access Constraints: None, Use Constraints:The intended display scale for this file is 1:500,000. This file should not be displayed at scales larger than 1:500,000. 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.
Bbox East Long -74.689516
Bbox North Lat 42.26986
Bbox South Lat 39.7198
Bbox West Long -80.519891
Collection Package Id 2997785a-049b-4458-b90d-140302e84e48
Coupled Resource
Frequency Of Update notPlanned
Harvest Object Id 9e162582-ccb3-4de9-8ec9-ae8203b465a4
Harvest Source Id 897d85ae-ee04-4973-a443-493b31261576
Harvest Source Title 2016_county_within_ua_500
Licence
Metadata Language eng
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[-80.519891, 39.7198], [-74.689516, 39.7198], [-74.689516, 42.26986], [-80.519891, 42.26986], [-80.519891, 39.7198]]]}
Progress completed
Spatial Data Service Type
Spatial Reference System
Spatial Harvester True
Temporal Extent Begin 2016-03
Temporal Extent End 2016-03

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