2020 Census Blocks (Census/TIGER)

This is the 2020 vintage of the 2020 TIGER/Line Census Blocks. 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 2020 Census blocks nest within every other 2020 Census geographic area, so that Census Bureau statistical data can be tabulated at the block level and aggregated up to the appropriate geographic areas. Blocks are the smallest geographic areas for which the Census Bureau publishes data from the decennial census. Date: 1/21/2021 Update: Irregular. While Census boundaries are updated every 10 years, the Census Bureau makes annual corrections to the geographies as needed. These updates are usually minor and BMC reviews them every few years. Source: U.S. Census Bureau. More information on Census geography can be found at https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger-line.html.