Attn Dave: Defunct Counties, Maps, and Old Boundaries

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Two questions:

1. How would you go about uploading data for defunct counties that never had a FIPS code?
2. Would it be at all possible to add historical county-level shapefiles that don't already exist?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Two questions:

1. How would you go about uploading data for defunct counties that never had a FIPS code?
2. Would it be at all possible to add historical county-level shapefiles that don't already exist?

Depending on how recently it went defunct, it may have had a FIPS code.  For example  Nansemond County, Virginia which got swallowed up by the City of Suffolk in the 70's had the FIPS code of 51-123.

In theory you could insert defunct counties into the gaps that had been intended for new counties, for example Elk County, Alabama could sensibly be assigned 01-050, but that would not work in all cases.  (South Carolina being a prime example because of our funky governmental structure in the antebellum period in which we had districts, counties, and parishes.  Every place was part of a district, but there were also counties and parishes which largely didn't overlap, but there were places that were part of both a county and a parish.)

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Two questions:

1. How would you go about uploading data for defunct counties that never had a FIPS code?
2. Would it be at all possible to add historical county-level shapefiles that don't already exist?

Depending on how recently it went defunct, it may have had a FIPS code.  For example  Nansemond County, Virginia which got swallowed up by the City of Suffolk in the 70's had the FIPS code of 51-123.

In theory you could insert defunct counties into the gaps that had been intended for new counties, for example Elk County, Alabama could sensibly be assigned 01-050, but that would not work in all cases.  (South Carolina being a prime example because of our funky governmental structure in the antebellum period in which we had districts, counties, and parishes.  Every place was part of a district, but there were also counties and parishes which largely didn't overlap, but there were places that were part of both a county and a parish.)

What if it was before FIPS?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Two questions:

1. How would you go about uploading data for defunct counties that never had a FIPS code?
2. Would it be at all possible to add historical county-level shapefiles that don't already exist?

Depending on how recently it went defunct, it may have had a FIPS code.  For example  Nansemond County, Virginia which got swallowed up by the City of Suffolk in the 70's had the FIPS code of 51-123.

In theory you could insert defunct counties into the gaps that had been intended for new counties, for example Elk County, Alabama could sensibly be assigned 01-050, but that would not work in all cases. (South Carolina being a prime example because of our funky governmental structure in the antebellum period in which we had districts, counties, and parishes.  Every place was part of a district, but there were also counties and parishes which largely didn't overlap, but there were places that were part of both a county and a parish.)

What if it was before FIPS?

Read and comprehend.  FIPS was never designed to handle historical data as it wasn't of interest to those who designed it.  Between that and the fact that FIPS is now deprecated as a standard (tho INCITS uses the existing FIPS codes as its starting point), it's not really a great choice for a site such as this.

[RI]

Washabaugh County, SD is 46131 on the Atlas.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Washabaugh County, SD is 46131 on the Atlas.

Because that is its FIPS/INCITS code.  While Washabaugh County no longer exists (and it only existed for some purposes when it did exist) it didn't get merged into Jackson County until well after FIPS was up and running.  It's the county equivalents that ceased to exist before FIPS was established that don't have FIPS codes.