U.S. Census Bureau

Determining Census 2000 Tract Numbers
for HMDA/CRA Reporting


Please note that the Census Bureau is not able to assist in preparing documents to meet HMDA requirements or in determining the appropriate census tract numbers for individual addresses.

To determine Census 2000 Census Tract Numbers for a given property address, you should first use Census Tract Street Address Lookup Resources. Please note that the Census 2000 tract number is not necessarily the same as the 1990 Census tract for a given address or area so you must use Census 2000 geocoding materials.

Census Tract Street Address Lookup Resources

In the past, many reporters have used the TIGER/Census Tract Street Index® (TIGER/CTSI) product. This personal computer software product enabled you to determine the census tract numbers for properties that use city style street addresses. The U.S. Census Bureau has no plans to produce a Census 2000 TIGER/Census Tract Street Index.

This decision is based upon the following considerations:

  1. The Census Bureau's American FactFinder (AFF) Internet application has an address lookup function that provides Census 2000 tract numbers for street addresses.
  2. We have added a new feature to the LandView 5 and 6 products that will allow users to map and geocode an address to a census tract and block group number. Please note that because the LandView products are entirely based on official U.S. Census Bureau files, they provide the official census tract number for a given address range or a specific location on the map.

If you cannot find the street address in the Census Tract Street Address Lookup Resources, you would then need to use either the Census Tract Outline Maps (Census 2000) along with an up-to-date local reference map or LandView® 5 or 6.

Census 2000 Tract Outline Maps.

These maps are published in Adobe® Acrobat® PDF file format. Each map sheet is available from the U.S. Census Bureau's Map Products Internet page and may be viewed on-line or downloaded.

These maps are designed for a paper sheet size of 36 inches by 33 inches because of the tremendous amount of detail that they must show for a given area. Therefore, printing the entire map sheet on to a much smaller sheet of paper will not provide a usable image. However, a user has several options for getting printed copies.

These maps show the boundaries and numbers of the census tracts as well as the named features underlying the boundaries. They also show the boundaries, names and codes for American Indian/Alaska Native/Hawaiian home land areas, counties, county subdivisions, and places.

The outline maps do not show streets, street names, or address ranges within a census tract (See Figure 1). Consequently, you may wish to use these maps in combination with up-to-date local street maps.

Image of New York County, NY
Figure 1: Portion of Census Tract Outline Map - New York County, NY

LandView® 5 and LandView® 6

LandView is a desktop mapping software product distributed by the U.S. Census Bureau. (They may be ordered on DVD-ROM or on CD-ROM) They run on Windows®98, NT, Windows 2000, XP and Macintosh® operating systems.

LandView shows detailed networks of roads (containing address information where available), rivers, and railroads along with jurisdictional and statistical boundaries (including census tracts). The information is based upon the U.S. Census Bureau's Census 2000 TIGER/Line files that reflect the street network and address ranges known to the U.S. Census Bureau as of late 1999. Besides producing custom map views that display selected user-specified map information, LandView also provides the capability of displaying the FIPS state and county codes, census tract and block group numbers for any location that a user points to on the map.

LandView has an address finder feature that allows a user to locate a street intersection or street address range on a map for a given ZIP Code. Ordering information, a fully functional demonstration copy of the software for Prince William County, VA and a tutorial are available for LandView 5 and LandView 6.


Figure 2: LandView 5 Map of New York County, NY



[PDF] or PDF denotes a file in Adobe’s Portable Document Format. To view the file, you will need the Adobe® Acrobat® Reader This link to a non-federal Web site does not imply endorsement of any particular product, company, or content. available free from Adobe.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Geography Division
Created: December 23, 2002