2016 Cartographic Boundary File, Current Combined Statistical Area for United States, 1:20,000,000
Description
The 2016 cartographic boundary shapefiles are simplified
representations of selected geographic areas from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master
Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing
(MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). These boundary files are specifically designed for
small-scale thematic mapping. When possible, generalization is performed with the
intent to maintain the hierarchical relationships among geographies and to maintain
the alignment of geographies within a file set for a given year. Geographic areas may
not align with the same areas from another year. Some geographies are available as
nation-based files while others are available only as state-based files. Combined
Statistical Areas (CSAs) are defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and
consist of two or more adjacent Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) that have
significant employment interchanges. The CBSAs that combine to create a CSA retain
separate identities within the larger CSA. Because CSAs represent groupings of CBSAs,
they should not be ranked or compared with individual CBSAs. The generalized
boundaries in this file are based on those defined by OMB based on the 2010 Census,
published in 2013, and updated in 2015.