Downloads
.zip file containing:
statewide ESRI Shapefile (census2000blocks_poly.* | census2000blocks_poly_orig.*)
Attributes
The polygon attributes (census2000blocks_poly.dbf and census2000blocks_poly_orig.dbf) for the Census 2000 Blocks shapefiles distributed by MassGIS contain the following items:
| ITEM NAME | TYPE / WIDTH | DESCRIPTION |
| AREA | N / 20 | Area of polygon(s) in square meters. |
| PERIMETER | N / 20 | Perimeter of polygon(s) in meters. |
| STATE | C / 2 | State ID Code (Massachusetts = 25) |
| COUNTY | C / 3 | County code (FIPS-ID without “25”) |
| TRACT | C / 6 | Census 2000 Tract Code |
| BLOCKGROUP | C / 1 | Census 2000 Blockgroup Code |
| BLOCK | C / 4 | Census 2000 Block Code |
| BLK_ID | C / 20 | Unique Block ID value |
| BG_ID | C / 20 | Unique Blockgroup ID value |
| CT_ID | C / 20 | Unique Census Tract ID value |
| LOGRECNO | C / 7 | Common field to join/link to related attribute tables |
| REPDISTNUM | N / 3 | District Code |
| SENDISTNUM | N / 2 | District Code |
| CD108 | N / 2 | District Code |
| TOWN_ID | N / 3 | Town ID Code |
| POP_2000 | N / 6 | Census 2000 Population Value (from SF1) |
| DRY_PCT | N / 6 | Percentage of non-water area for the block |
| DRY_ACRES | N / 6 | Non-water area, in Acres |
| DRY_SQMI | N / 6 | Non-water area, in Square Miles |
| DRY_SQKM | N / 6 | Non-water area, in Square Kilometers |
| ** - For the most accurate display of population density by Block, normalize POP_2000 by any of the last three items. |
Related demographics tables
The following table, available in dBase format (.dbf), which provides detailed demographics information, may be joined to the Blocks shapefiles on the LOGRECNO item. See the Field Descriptions page for details.
cen2k_b_pop_age_gen.dbf
Lists how many members of each gender fall within incremental age categories. Download (includes field description Excel file)
More tables storing demographics data that may be joined to the Blocks shapefiles will be forthcoming. In addition, the REPDISTNUM, SENDISTNUM, and CD108 items may be used to join these tables to the , , and district layers, respectively.
Maintenance
MassGIS updated the two versions of the Blocks layer in April 2003: a small number of polygons had miscodings in some of the MassGIS-added fields (TOWN_ID, REPDISTNUM, and SENDISTNUM). Additionally, the "DRY" fields were added to these layers.