Step by Step Custom Tables with the US Census
Although the United States Census offers articles with ready made tables on a variety of population, social, and economic issues, students commonly use the Census to find detailed information on a specific county, city, or other place. To do this requires a custom table as well as a bit of patience. As of 2006, the Census is six years old. There is a much newer American Community Survey which may work better for some locations. Other locations simply do not exist in the Community Survey. Most of the directions in this handout that work for the Census also work with the American Community Survey.
- To reach the U.S. Census, type
http://www.census.gov in to your
browser's locator bar and click Enter.
- Click on American Fact Finder.
- Click the small get data link under either
Census 2000 or American Community Survey.
- With Census 2000, choose either Summary File 1 (SF1)
for population data or Summary File 3 (SF3) for social or economic data.
The American Community Survey defaults to the 2005 edition which has
the most current data.
- Click Custom Table in the grey area.
- Select a geographic area. Complete your selection
with the pull down menu. Click Add and then Next to finish the process.
- Select a table, and then click Go.
- Check off all the elements that appear in the white box and then click
Add followed by Next. You need to scroll down to see the box
with Next on it.
- Click Show Results to see your table. Note: the Census
does not produce printer friendly custom tables. You will need to manually
copy or cut and paste the data to a Word document or spreadsheet. Alternatively, you
can download the web page with the table to a floppy disk or USB drive.
- To create another custom table, click on Main in the bread crumb
trail of blue text links at the top of the page.
- To end your Census session, click the Home icon in the browser's top menu or close your browser.