CensusTract.info and/or its suppliers are not liable for any use of or reliance upon this map or data, or any information contained herein. While reasonable efforts have been made to provide accurate data, CensusTract.info and/or its suppliers make no warranty, expressed or implied, as to its accuracy, completeness, or fitness for use of any purpose.
About CensusTract.info
CensusTract.info provides a process for verifying census tracts. Institutions have sole responsibility for the accuracy of the census tracts they submit to the Federal Government, even when they're using a commercial geocoding service. Noncompliance can lead to civil money penalties.
From 12 CFR Part 1003 (Regulation C):
"A financial institution that obtains the required data, such as property-location information, from third parties is responsible for ensuring that the information reported pursuant to § 1003.5 is correct."
"Section 1003.6(b)(2) provides that an incorrect entry for census tract number is deemed a bona fide error, and is not a violation of the Act or this part, provided that the financial institution maintains procedures reasonably adapted to avoid an error. Obtaining the census tract numbers for covered loans and applications from a geocoding tool available on the Bureau's Web site that identifies the census tract of a property using property addresses entered by users is an example of a procedure reasonably adapted to avoid errors under § 1003.6(b)(2)."
Unfortunately, the Bureau's geocoding tool is not feasible for large numbers of addresses. To help institutions who must use something other than the Bureau's geocoding tool, Censustract.info provides an automated process for comparing their geocoding results to the Bureau's geocoding process, documenting the findings, and providing the information needed to defend any differences.
Everything is online, and in one place. CensusTract.info incorporates address verification, address standardization, multi-source geocoding (for corroboration), a visual review of accuracy, tools to perform manual research, and an audit trail. It's now easy to perform a third-party verification of your geocoding service and document your findings, geocode difficult addresses, or even geocode individual addresses in real-time, because we've integrated multiple tools into one website:
• The official FFIEC Geocoding process, the de facto benchmark for HMDA and CRA geocoding.
• The official Census Bureau Geocoder, provides an approximate location using address interpolation.
• The Census Bureau's census tract boundaries (TIGER/Line Shapefiles), for visual confirmation.
• A commercial geocoding service, Geocod.io, reliable and easy to use.
• Google Maps. Crowd-sourcing and rigorous vetting help Google achieve what is arguably the most up-to-date address location service available. Google Maps is especially useful for new construction, i.e. addresses too new for USPS-based geocoding services and the Census Bureau's MAF/TIGER-based geocoder. Seeing everything on a map provides visual confirmation of accuracy, and when necessary, supports manual/visual determination of an address' census tract.
To document findings and make it easy to share them with others, results are saved as an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet provides a summary of findings. Because it's Excel, it's easy to share your findings with others who are interested in the steps you've taken to verify the accuracy of your geocoding. Later, the recipient can use CensusTract.info (i.e., re-upload the spreadsheet) to obtain a detailed view of the different geocoders' results for each address and to map the different location and census tract estimates.
CensusTract.info is not a batch geocoder. If you need reliable batch geocoding Geocod.io is a good option. Whatever geocoding solution you chose, make sure you're periodically verifying its accuracy and documenting the findings.
The owners/operators provide this website free of charge, and it is our intent to do so until the daily usage consistently and substantially exceeds (based on our judgement) the Geocod.io "free tier" of 2,500 requests per day or ERSI's "free tier" of 20,000 requests per month. As the popularity of the site grows we may limit the number of requests per IP address to ensure that no one user is monopolizing the daily limit. If we do implement a daily user limit and the limit impacts you, please contact us to discuss a relationship that makes sense for all parties involved.
Please send all comments, questions, or suggestions to the website administrator via the "Contact Us" link.
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NOTE: With regards to the confidentiality; only addresses leave your computer, they are encrypted in transit, and they are not stored on our server.
CensusTract.info allows you to verify census tracts against the FFIEC Geocoder's process. As of January 1, 2023, the service supporting the FFIEC’s Geocoder is the ESRI’s ArcGIS World Geocoding Service. The FFIEC Geocoder returns a census tract for an address only if the following conditions are met:
• The address exists in the ESRI address database.
• The ESRI “address type” is either a Subaddress, PointAddress, or StreetAddress.
• The ESRI match score must be 98 or higher.
When these conditions are met, the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service returns a latitude and longitude. Taking the coordinates, the Geocoder next determines the census tract for the address. The appropriate census tract is determined by TIGER files issued by the U.S. Census Bureau.
CensusTract.info allows you to verify census tracts in a file.
The results are displayed on screen. Clicking an address shows the details of the verification results for that address.
After viewing the detailed results, clicking "Return to List" returns you to the list.
CensusTract.info allows you to process a Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) file to verify the census tracts.
• The file must be be formatted according to the HMDA submission specifications.
• The first row in the file MUST be a HMDA Transmittal Sheet (per HMDA submission specifications).
• Census tracts will be verified based on boundaries applicable to "Calender Year" in the Transmittal Sheet.
• The file must contain Addresses and Census Tracts.
• If you upload more than 200 records CensusTract.info will only verify 200, via a random sample.
CensusTract.info allows you to verify census tracts in other files if the file contains addresses and census tracts. The file can be any of the following formats:
• Excel (.xls or .xlsx)
• Comma-separated variables (.csv)
• Tab-delimited text (.txt)
• Comma-delimited text (.txt)
• Pipe-delimited text (.txt)
The first row in each uploaded file MUST be a header row that describes the columns included in the file.
• The uploaded file can contain any number of columns. Extraneous columns are ignored. There MUST be an Address column and a Tract column.
• Addresses can be presented in four columns (Address City State Zipcode), or as one column (Address).
• Column headers MUST be verbatim (see above), no quotes.
• If you upload more than 200 records CensusTract.info will only verify 200, via a random sample.
Additional rules for formatting the data:
• The tract should be formatted to include the 2-digit FIPS State code, the 3-digit FIPS County Code, and the 7-digit Census Tract. Include leading zeros, trailing zeros, and a period. A valid tract will look like this: 010011111.00
• If you want to include a record id in your results the header MUST include an "Id" column.
• The address column(s) must not contain any of the special characters that can be used as column separators (i.e. no commas, tabs or | symbols).
Here are some examples of valid files:
If you include "Latitude" and "Longitude" columns in your file you'll be able to compare the latitude and longitude returned by your geocoding process to the latitude and longitude returned by the CensusTract.info process.
To manually locate a tract:
• Enable all of the geocoders.
• Enter an approximate location (e.g. cross streets, city, street, zip, etc.) into the address box.
• Select the closest option from the suggestions. The map will zoom to an approximate location.
• Click the "Manual Selection" checkbox and select a point on the map.
• For your documentation, type the actual address into the address box and print the map showing the location that you've selected for the address.
Use the printer icon on the menu bar at the top of the map to print a screen capture of the results for an individual address.
If you're verifying a sample of census tracts from a file you can save the results to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet will show the address, the reported tract, and the result of the verification process. Save the spreadsheet for your documentation or provide it to others as proof of the accuracy of your geocoding and the thoroughness of your verification process.
Note that the file can be re-uploaded into CensusTract.info, at any time, to see the details of the verification results for each address.
CensusTract.info is not a batch geocoder. CensusTract.info will only verify 200 census tracts at a time. If your batch contains more than 200 tracts CensusTract.info will verify a random sample of up to 200. If you need fast reliable batch geocoding Geocod.io is a good option. Whatever geocoding solution you chose, make sure you're verifying its accuracy and documenting the findings.
Clicking a marker on the map will copy the longitude and lattitude of the marker to the Windows clipboard.
Clicking a marker in the results area will zoom the map to that location.
Clicking a tract in the results area will zoom the map to show the tract's boundaries and puts the tract number on the Windows clipboard.
When operating in "Manual Selection" mode, dragging the yellow marker around the map will highlight the tract of the new marker location.
This privacy policy ("Policy") describes how Website Operator ("Website Operator", "we", "us" or "our") collects, protects and uses the personally identifiable information ("Personal Information") you ("User", "you" or "your") may provide on the www.CensusTract.info website and any of its products or services (collectively, "Website" or "Services"). It also describes the choices available to you regarding our use of your Personal Information and how you can access and update this information. This Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that we do not own or control, or to individuals that we do not employ or manage.
Only addresses leave your computer, they are encrypted in transit, and they are not stored on our server.
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In addition to the rights as explained in this Privacy Policy, California residents who provide Personal Information (as defined in the statute) to obtain products or services for personal, family, or household use are entitled to request and obtain from us, once a calendar year, information about the Personal Information we shared, if any, with other businesses for marketing uses. If applicable, this information would include the categories of Personal Information and the names and addresses of those businesses with which we shared such personal information for the immediately prior calendar year (e.g., requests made in the current year will receive information about the prior year). To obtain this information please contact us.
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This document was last updated on December 3, 2019
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This document was last updated on December 3, 2019
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