Format
TIGER/Line ASCII
Summary
- Name
- TIGER/Line ASCII
- Version
- 1989-2006
- Identifiers
-
- PUID: fmt/2113
- MIME: None
- Format type
-
- Dataset
- GIS
- Description
- TIGER/Line Files are extracts of selected geographic and cartographic information from the US Census Bureau's Master Address File (MAF)/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) system. Before 2007 these were constructed of ZIP files containing ASCII data. Each ZIP represents a single county or equivalent. Each ZIP contains a number of 'Record Type' files. In the 2000 Census data there were up to 17 Record Type files per ZIP, with each named RTx where x represents a value for the nature of the Record Type, so e.g. Record Type 1 = <filename>.RT1, Record Type Z = <filename>.RTZ. In the 1992 Census data the internal files had an .F5x extension, where x represents the value for each record type.
- Note
- Specifications for TIGER/Line can be found on the US Census Bureau website: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/technical-documentation/complete-technical-documentation/tiger-geo-line.html
- File extensions
-
zip - Source
- Preservica / Preservica
Relationships
- Has priority over
Internal signatures
Tiger/Line ASCII 1989-2006
- Note
- Identification relies on two elements: the ‘PK’ 0x0304 ZIP declaration, following by the first record in the file listing following the naming convention TGRxxxxx., where x is a numeric value between 0-9 that represents a 5 digit ‘FIPS’ code – the identifier for each county, followed by a period (dot) that signifies the start of the file extension.
Byte sequences
- Min Frag Length
- Absolute from BOF
- Offset
- 0
- Max offset
- 0
- Byte Sequence
504B0304{26}544752[30:39][30:39][30:39][30:39][30:39]2E- Endianness
- None
Changelog
-
Added in V125
- Release date
- 7 September 2026
TIGER/Line ASCII1989-2006: Signature researched and samples provided by Preservica.
TIGER/Line ASCII1989-2006: Full entry added. Submitted by Preservica.