Census of Population and Housing, 1980 [United States]: P.L. 94-171 Population Counts (ICPSR 7854)

Summary View help for Summary

These data files provide population counts for racial and ethnic groups living in all the jurisdictions of the states in the United States in 1980. These data were produced as part of the Census Bureau's commitment under Public Law 94-171 to aid states' legislatures in the redistricting process. Public Law 171 of the 94th Congress was passed in 1975 to help facilitate the one-man-one-vote concept enunciated in 1963. It specifies procedures for conducting the decennial census for those states wishing to participate and makes improvements for reporting the findings as well. As a result of this law, the Census Bureau was authorized to prepare for each state a data file that contains population counts for racial and ethnic groups living in all the jurisdictions of the state. Each of these files contains summary statistics for seven population groups/types: Whites, Blacks, American Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Spanish-Hispanics, total population, and population of other races. Each record in each of the files is a type of census reporting area arranged in hierarchical order. There are 51 data files, one for each of the states plus one for Washington, DC. Each of the files has the same format of 156-character logical records with characters 1-100 containing identification data and the alphabetic name of the record and characters 101-156 containing the data for the seven population groups/types. Data are provided for states or state equivalent, counties or county equivalent, minor civil divisions (MCDs) or census county divisions (CCDs), incorporated places, election precincts or their equivalent (if any), census tracts or block numbering areas (BNAs) (if any), and block groups and blocks in blocked areas, or enumeration districts in nonblock-numbered areas. The Census Bureau has produced a file, User Note No.#2 (Part 90), to accompany the PL94-171 series that documents a problem encountered in all but nine states in the series. The nine states NOT affected are Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The file contains a list of places split across counties or MCD/CCDs that have two partial records but do not have a "part" indicator on either record. Because of the omission of this part indicator, it is not possible to connect the two parts of the same record (place) for analysis purposes without the User Note No.#2 that allows researchers to identify these places and use the data for them more easily. There are 5,971 records (split places) in the file, each with a logical record length of 48.

Citation View help for Citation

Export Citation:

• RIS (generic format for RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)
• EndNote

Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage

Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)