I'm looking for digital data for Puerto Rico. Specifically census tract shapefiles from the 1990 & 1980 census. TIA
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did you look on the census bureau web site?– Ian TurtonCommented Jul 10, 2018 at 19:28
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The only thing I could find for PR was from 1992, but I have no idea what these files are!!! ftp2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER1992/72– Inactivated AccountCommented Jul 10, 2018 at 20:23
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1The closest I got was census.gov/main/www/cen1990.html and several of the links there are broken. This info may not be online, at least not on census.gov. nhgis.org/user-resources/data-availability also suggests 1980 census tract data isn't available for Puerto Rico and notes that the Census didn't cover the entire USA until 1990.– user3856Commented Jul 11, 2018 at 0:39
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1 Answer
As referenced by Barry Carter's comment on the question, there isn't a straightforward answer to this question.
As described in this Census Bureau page, the entire US was not partitioned into Census Tracts until the year 2000. (In 1990, the whole country was covered by either tracts or the now-defunct Block Numbering Area, or BNA).
Those deeply interested in Puerto Rico may wish to read Understanding Census Geography In The Tiger Data Base: The Case Of Puerto Rico (PDF), a 1991 paper by Jonathan Sperling, of the Census Bureau's Geography Division. In it, he writes:
Reflecting the rapid urban expansion in Puerto Rico over the past few decades, the 1990 census shows that 56 of the 78 municipios are covered by census tracts compared with 22 in 1980 and only 8 in 1970.
which reinforces that, in Puerto Rico, specifically, census tracts were sparse before 2000.
Typically, for questions like this, I'd direct someone to NHGIS.org, but when I downloaded the 1980 Census Tract shapefiles (there are two versions), neither included Puerto Rico.
If NHGIS doesn't have it, you probably have your work cut out for you.
