U.S. State and Equivalent Geographic Boundaries for 2017

2017 geographic boundaries for U.S. states and equivalent entities, extracted from the Census Bureau's MAF/TIGER Database. The dataset includes the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Island Areas, designed as standalone shapefiles that can be combined for national coverage.

Use Cases

• Map U.S. state and equivalent entity boundaries for 2017 using the Polygon geometry data.
• Combine standalone shapefiles to create a seamless national coverage map without overlaps or gaps.
• Perform spatial analysis on primary governmental divisions, including the District of Columbia and Island Areas.

Strengths

• Data originates from the authoritative U.S. Census Bureau MAF/TIGER Database.
• Shapefiles are topologically integrated, representing a seamless national file with no overlaps or gaps.
• Covers 50 states plus 6 statistical equivalent entities (e.g., District of Columbia, Puerto Rico).

Limitations

• Data is from 2017 and may not reflect recent boundary changes or geopolitical updates.
• No attribute columns or sample data are provided in the input, limiting analytical depth.
• The dataset's size and row count are unknown, making scalability assessments difficult.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Extract of selected geographic and cartographic information from the Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database.

Time Range

2017

Freshness

Last updated in the catalog on 2021-01-13, but the underlying data is for 2017.

Geography

United States, including the fifty States, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.