2010 Census Tracts for King County - Conflated to Parcels - Major Waterbodies Erased

The TIGER/Line Files are shapefiles and related database files (.dbf) that are an extract of selected geographic and cartographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). The MTDB represents a seamless national file with no overlaps or gaps between parts, however, each TIGER/Line File is designed to stand alone as an independent data set, or they can be combined to cover the entire nation. Census Blocks are statistical areas bounded on all sides by visible features, such as streets, roads, streams, and railroad tracks, and/or by nonvisible boundaries such as city, town, township, and county limits, and short line-of-sight extensions of streets and roads. Census blocks are relatively small in area; for example, a block in a city bounded by streets. However, census blocks in remote areas are often large and irregular and may even be many square miles in area. A common misunderstanding is that data users think census blocks are used geographically to build all other census geographic areas, rather all other census geographic areas are updated and then used as the primary constraints, along with roads and water features, to delineate the tabulation blocks. As a result, all 2010 Census blocks nest within every other 2010 Census geographic area, so that Census Bureau statistical data can be tabulated at the block level and aggregated up to the appropriate geographic areas. Census blocks cover all territory in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island Areas (American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands). Blocks are the smallest geographic areas for which the Census Bureau publishes data from the decennial census. A block may consist of one or more faces.

TIGER/线文件（TIGER/Line Files）是从美国人口普查局的主地址文件/拓扑集成地理编码与参照数据库（Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing，简称MAF/TIGER数据库，缩写MTDB）中提取的精选地理与制图信息集合，包含shapefile及相关.dbf格式数据库文件。
MTDB是一份无缝衔接的全国性数据集，各部分之间无重叠、无间隙；但每份TIGER/线文件均可作为独立数据集单独使用，也可组合使用以覆盖全美范围。
人口普查街区（Census Blocks）是指以可见地物（如街道、道路、溪流、铁轨等）和/或不可见边界（如市界、镇界、乡界、县界，以及街道和道路的短视线延伸段）为边界的统计区域。
人口普查街区的面积通常较小，例如城市中由街道围合的街区；但偏远地区的普查街区往往面积更大、形状更不规则，面积甚至可达数平方英里。
一个常见的认知误区是，数据使用者认为普查街区是构建其他所有普查地理区域的基础地理单元，但实际情况恰恰相反：所有其他普查地理区域均先完成更新，随后与道路、水体地物一同作为主要约束条件，用于划定普查制表街区。
因此，所有2010年人口普查街区均嵌套于所有其他2010年普查地理区域之内，如此一来，人口普查局的统计数据可按街区级别进行制表，并可汇总至相应的地理区域。
人口普查街区覆盖美国、波多黎各及各岛屿地区（美属萨摩亚、关岛、北马里亚纳群岛联邦以及美属维尔京群岛）的全部领土。
街区是人口普查局发布十年人口普查数据的最小地理单元。一个街区可由一个或多个面组成。