March 2012
Download this layer (.zip file, 832 KB):
 - ESRI Shapefiles (arc and polygon)
 - ArcMap layer files (.lyr) (for ArcMap 10 and 9.0*)
* The data sources in the LYR for Arc 9 will need to be reset)

Overview

The Massachusetts Governor's Council Districts datalayer reflects the eight voting district boundaries as established by the Massachusetts General Court Special Joint Committee on Redistricting . These boundaries took effect in January 2012; however, no Member names will be added until after the fall 2012 elections . The name of the statewide datalayers are GOVCOUNCIL2012_POLY and GOVCOUNCIL2012_ARC. 
2012 Governor's Council Districts
Click to see the full size image.

Production

Staff at the Massachusetts General Court Special Joint Committee on Redistricting developed this layer with its contractor, Caliper Corp. (Newton, MA), using Maptitude for Redistricting software. MassGIS appended the 1:100,000 coastline and state outline and added the Councilor's name and party attributes.

Attributes

The GOVCOUNCIL2012_POLY attribute table has the following fields:

FIELD NAME WDTH / TYPE DESCRIPTION
DIST_NUM 16 / C Numeric district code from redistricting committee
DIST_NAME 16 / C Name of district
MEMBER 2 / C Name of Councilor
PARTY 25 / C Political party of councilor (D = Democrat)

In the GOVCOUNCIL2012_ARC attribute table, the item OUTLINE is coded as follows:

  • 0 = internal district boundaries
  • 1 = state
  • 2 = coastline

Maintenance

MassGIS will update the layer as needed.

Last Updated 3/13/2012