Draft Census VTD Shapefiles

[cinyc]

Census released its second (?) draft of 2020 VTD shapefiles for participating partner states. Not every state is participating - at least yet.

Those shapefiles are available for download here (Click on 2019 Partnership Shapefiles for the 2019 BAS, 2020 PSAP Delineation Phase, and the VTD Verification Phase, then the state & counties).

Unfortunately, the web interface only allows downloading 5 counties at a time.

[cinyc]

Yep, besides the limit of 5 counties, each file has a generic 55 MB autofile zipped up in it that is unneeded, and about 5 MB of actual shapefile data.

A better way is to download a FTP client or use the URL below in a web browser to access the FTP (be sure to look for date modified before downloading; updated files are at the bottom):

ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/

Each folder is the first two digits of the FIPS code (for example, "13" = GA). This should make downloading large numbers of files much easier - and without having to juggle 55 MB of junk data for every file downloaded.

Isn't the version with the most recent VTD file usually in 18v2? Did you find any VTD files in the 18v3s? I only checked NY & ND, but I didn't.

[cinyc]

Yep, besides the limit of 5 counties, each file has a generic 55 MB autofile zipped up in it that is unneeded, and about 5 MB of actual shapefile data.

A better way is to download a FTP client or use the URL below in a web browser to access the FTP (be sure to look for date modified before downloading; updated files are at the bottom):

ftp2.census.gov/geo/pvs/

Each folder is the first two digits of the FIPS code (for example, "13" = GA). This should make downloading large numbers of files much easier - and without having to juggle 55 MB of junk data for every file downloaded.

Isn't the version with the most recent VTD file usually in 18v2? Did you find any VTD files in the 18v3s? I only checked NY & ND, but I didn't.

I think so. I've only looked at GA & MN thus far and there are v3s for it (uploaded January 4 - with a few uploaded on January 10; the v2s I've seen were uploaded/last modified mostly in December).

The v3 versions are generally smaller, and, in my limited experience, don't include VTD shapefiles.