Documentation for the ZCTA-to-MA Relationship File

In response to user requests, the Census Bureau created a file listing Census 2000 ZIP 
Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) relationships to U.S. Counties and Metropolitan Areas 
(MAs) for the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. 

The file also contains ZCTA-to-Minor Civil Division (MCD) relationships for the New 
England states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and 
Vermont).  For these states, MAs are defined in terms of cities and towns, rather than 
counties.

For more information on MAs, go to http://www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/metroarea.html.
ZCTAs are new statistical entities developed by the U.S. Census Bureau for 
tabulating summary statistics from Census 2000. The Census Bureau 
developed this new entity to overcome the difficulties in precisely defining 
the land area covered by each ZIP Code.  Note that it was not possible to 
create a ZCTA for all USPS ZIP Codes.  For further details see the ZIP Code 
Tabulation Areas web page at http://www.census.gov/geo/ZCTA/zcta.html. 

The ZCTA-to-MA relationship file allows users to obtain a listing of Census 2000 
ZCTAs for a selected county or MA. It contains records for all Census 2000 five-digit 
ZCTAs, as well as the generic "HH" and "XX" ZCTAs (see the ZIP Code Tabulation 
Areas page for more information).  Note that some ZCTAs will appear in more than one 
State, County, MCD or MA.  Approximately 25% of ZCTAs appear in more than one 
County or County equivalent entity.

The file contained on this Web page was extracted from the Census 2000 Summary File 3 
(SF3) DVD. For more information about this product refer to the Census Bureau online 
catalog, accessible from the Census Bureau Home page.

NOTES: 
	* We are making this file available to the public "AS IS" without 
	  special formatting or extracts. The file layout is at the foot of this 
	  page. 
	* With the exception of Puerto Rico, Island Areas are not included in 
	  this file.  
	* The vintage of the geography in these files is Census 2000.
	* Because of changes in boundaries and entity names, as well as the 
	  creation of new entities, and the dissolution of others, users should 
	  not expect to find a "one-to-one" relationship between the entity 
	  names and codes in these files to the comparable 1990 Census files. 
	  We do not plan to document either boundary or entity changes 
	  between censuses in these files.
	* The Census Bureau does not have U.S. Postal Service ZIP Code 
	  products. For current ZIP Code products, contact the U.S. Postal 
	  Service. 


The file is ASCII text, one line per record, and has the following layout:

Columns 1-4: 	MSA/CMSA code
Columns 5-8:  	PMSA code 
Columns 9-10:	FIPS State code
Columns 11-13: 	FIPS County code
Columns 14-18: 	FIPS MCD code
Columns 19-23: 	ZCTA code
Columns 24-27:	multi-part ZCTA flag

For any field, a value of "9999" ("99999" for the MCD field) indicates that no such 
relationship exists for that particular record.  A value of "part" in the last field indicates 
that the ZCTA is present in at least one other county, MCD, MSA or PMSA.

For example, the record:

32809999090132536006029part

Indicates that ZCTA "06029" shares common geography with
	* County "09013" (Tolland County, CT), 
	* MCD "25360" (Ellington Town, CT), and
	* MSA/CMSA "3280" (Hartford, CT MSA)

The "9999" in columns 5-8 indicates that there is no PMSA relationship for this record.  
The "part" in columns 24-27 indicates that this ZCTA has additional 
relationships/records listed within the file.

The record:

9999999913129     30746

Indicates that ZCTA "30746" shares common geography with county "13129" (Gordon 
County, GA), but with no MSA/CMSA or PMSA.  In addition, the absence of "part" in 
columns 24-27 indicates that this is the only record in the file for ZCTA "30746."

Please direct questions regarding this file to the Geographic Products Management 
Branch of the Census Bureau's Geography Division at 301-763-1128.

