A Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA) is a geographic unit used by the
US Census for providing statistical and demographic information. Each PUMA contains at least 100,000 people. PUMAs do not overlap, and are contained within a single
state
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
. PUMAs were first created for the
1990 Census.
based on the results of the
2020 Census, there are 2,487 PUMAs.
PUMAs allow the Census to publish census data for sub-state areas throughout every state. For example, the ACS publishes detailed data every year, but due to their sampling procedure only publishes data for census area that have more than 65,000 People. Only seven of the 55 counties of West Virginia were large enough to receive estimates from the 2006 ACS. In contrast, all 12 PUMAs that partition West Virginia received 2006 ACS estimates.
The state governments drew PUMA boundaries for the
2000 Census, to allow reporting of detailed data for all areas. There were a total of 2,071 PUMAs in the 2000 Census.
PUMAs by State
See also
*
Census tract
A census tract, census area, census district or meshblock is a geographic region defined for the purpose of taking a census. Sometimes these coincide with the limits of cities, towns or other administrative areas and several tracts commonly exis ...
*
Census block
References
External links
Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs)History of PUMAs
{{USCensus Geography
United States Census Bureau geography