US County Boundaries

ISO-19139 Metadata

Metadata Information

Metadata character set: utf8

Last update:

Metadata contact:

Scope of the data described by the metadata: dataset

Scope name: dataset

Name of the metadata standard used: ISO 19139 Geographic Information - Metadata - Implementation Specification

Version of the metadata standard: 2007

Metadata identifier: fc8ccbf1454841188b66bcef322096f3

Data Identification Information

Resource citation:

Title: US County Boundaries

Date:

Reference date - creation: 2024-06-05T17:02:28

Date:

Reference date - revision: 2025-04-08T19:54:42

Descriptive keywords:

Keyword type not provided

Keywords: Puerto Rico, Independent Cities, Continental United States, United States, Parish, Boundaries, Polygon, Governmental Units and Administrative and Statistical Boundaries Theme, Nation, Hawaii, American Samoa, Borough, Guam, National Geospatial Data Asset, CONUS, U.S. Virgin Islands, Municipio, County, Alaska, NGDA, Northern Mariana Islands, U.S., HIFLD, Feature Service, SDI, NSDI, Open Data, FGDC, Emergency Preparedness, Disaster Planning, Infrastructure

Abstract: 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 census areas; the latter of which 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. All of the counties in Connecticut and Rhode Island and nine counties in Massachusetts were dissolved as functioning governmental entities; however, the Census Bureau continues to present data for these historical entities in order to provide comparable geographic units at the county level of the geographic hierarchy for these states and represents them as nonfunctioning legal entities in data products. 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.Download: https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TGRGDB24/tlgdb_2024_a_us_substategeo.gdb.zip Layer: CountyMetadata: https://meta.geo.census.gov/data/existing/decennial/GEO/GPMB/TIGERline/Current_19115/series_tl_2023_county.shp.iso.xml

Purpose: Counties (or statistically equivalent entities); January 1, 2024 vintage

Dataset language:

Dataset character set: utf8

Resource constraints:

General constraints:

Limitations of use: Access Constraints: None (Public Domain Information)Use Constraints: None (Public Use)

Resource extent:

Credits: U.S. Census Bureau

Distribution Information

Distribution format:

Format name: Feature Service

Format version:

Transfer options:

Online distribution information:

Online location: https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/arcgis/rest/services/TIGERweb/State_County/MapServer/1