2016 Cartographic Boundary File, Division for United States, 1:20,000,000

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. Divisions
are groupings of states within a census geographic region, established by the Census
Bureau for the presentation of census data. The current nine divisions (East North
Central, East South Central, Middle Atlantic, Mountain, New England, Pacific, South
Atlantic, West North Central, and West South Central) are intended to represent
relatively homogeneous areas that are subdivisions of the four census geographic
regions.