News for Digital Journalists

January 21, 2011

US Census upgrades American FactFinder tool, new data coming soon

Many journalists have long relied on the US Census’ American FactFinder online tool to analyze Census data. This week, that tool received a major facelift—and it soon will be populated with data from the 2010 Census…

The new American FactFinder features more ways to search, and more ways to manipulate tables and map data.

Table-related upgrades:

Customize table views
Sort and filter columns of a table
Transpose rows and columns
Save customized table

Map-related upgrades:

Select geographies from the map
Create maps from a table
Place labels and markers on maps
Download maps as PDFs

Coming soon:

Transpose rows and columns
Bookmark, download, and save/restore query

Take a virtual tour and read tutorials.

There’s also a guide to building deep links into American FactFinder. If you have existing links to data in the old FactFinder, the Census site warns: “The current American FactFinder will be discontinued in the Fall of 2011. At that time, any deep links into the discontinued system will no longer work.

Data from the American Community Survey, the Economic Census, and Population Estimates will be moved to the new American FactFinder “in the coming months,” says the Census site. For now, you can access that data via the existing FactFinder interface.