2009 TIGER/Line^® Shapefiles

• Extracts containing geographic and cartographic information from the Census Bureau's MAF/TIGER^® (Master Address File/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) database.
• The files provide the digital map base for a Geographic Information System or mapping software. The files do not contain any mapping software.
• They include spatial data for geographic features such as roads, railroads, rivers, and lakes, as well as legal and statistical geographic areas.
• The geographic entity codes needed to link the Census Bureau's demographic data to the geography are included in the files. The TIGER/Line Shapefiles do not contain any demographic data; it must be downloaded separately.
• Metadata in Extensible Markup Language (XML) format is included with each compressed file.

Downloads

• State Shapefiles
  These files consist of one .zip file for each shapefile for the entire state. For example, the tl_2009_48_place00.zip file contains the layer for the Census 2000 Place polygons for the State of Texas.
• County Shapefiles
  These files consist of one .zip file for all shapefiles within a county. For example, the 48201_Harris.zip file contains all layers for Harris county.

Technical Documentation

• Access complete technical documentation, user notes, and a description of the organizational structure of the files.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Frequently asked questions about TIGER/Line^® Shapefiles.

More detailed information on the 2009 TIGER/Line^® Shapefiles can be found at http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrshp2009/tgrshp2009.html.

If you need further information concerning the content of the TIGER/Line^® Shapefiles, please contact the Geographic Products Branch, Geography Division at geo.tiger@census.gov. The telephone number is (301) 763-1128.