tigris: An R Package to Access and Work with Geographic Data from the US Census Bureau

Abstract

TIGER/Line shapefiles from the United States Census Bureau are commonly used for the mapping and analysis of US demographic trends. The tigris package provides a uniform interface for R users to download and work with these shapefiles. Functions in tigris allow R users to request Census geographic datasets using familiar geographic identifiers and return those datasets as objects of class "Spatial*DataFrame". In turn, tigris ensures consistent and high-quality spatial data for R users’ cartographic and spatial analysis projects that involve US Census data. This article provides an overview of the functionality of the tigris package, and concludes with an applied example of a geospatial workflow using data retrieved with tigris.