Steps in Downloading Data from the Census WWW Site

The Census Bureau places data on ther web site for users to download.   The data can be downloaded as html tables (i.e., web pages with embedded tables) and as comma delimited ascii files.  If you want a summary data table for an area to use in a report or to print for others then the html page option may be best.  If you want to use the data in analysis (e.g., as denominators for your rates) then you need to download the data as a comma delimited ascii file.  

This exercise will walk you through the census web site.   If you are working in Windows 95 or Windows 98 then you can easily keep this page open while going through census web site following these steps.

Step 1: Go to the Census web site

It all starts by going to:  http://venus.census.gov/cdrom/lookup.  

Select STF3A (which is a census sample data file or long form data).

Step 2:  Select county level data

In this exercise we are interested in county level data for Illinois.

Select Illinois (it will be highlighted).

Select "Go to level State--County".  This will provide you with the data for all counties in yur selected state.

Then hit the SUBMIT button.

This will bring you to a screen composed of Illinois counties.

This screen you must Select/retrieve all of the areas below.  Then hit the SUBMIT button.

This will provide you with data for EACH county in Illinois.

Step 3:  Select type of data retrieval

At the next screen you see you can go back to re-select your options ("EDIT your selections so far") or you "Choose TABLES to retrieve."  The use the word TABLES because all of the census data is organized by database tables.  Therefore, each variable is kept in a separate database file.  Since you want to download data then select the "Choose TABLES" option.  Clic on the "Submit" button.

Step 4:  Select your variable of interest

The next screen shows a list of variables in STF3 data set.  Select the AGE variable by checking the box.

Press "Submit."

Step 5:  Obtain data file documentation

You will now see a screen that gives you 3 options for viewing your data.  Ignore the CODATA format option as we will not discuss it here.  To use the tab delimited data you will need to be able to understand the layout of the data file.   The census site doesn't provide official "documentation" but we have an option that works just as well.

Select the "HTML format" first and then press SUBMIT.

Below is the HTML format.  It basically looks like a publication-like view of the data. 

Print "ONLY 1 or 2 PAGES" of your data in HTML table format.  You will need this table view to use as your data dictionary for the data file you will download.

Step 6:  Obtain the data file

Hit the BACK button on the browser and re-select "Tab-delimited format".

Re-select "Tab delimited format" and press "Submit."

The Tab-delimited format is displayed below.  You can see that each variable is separated

(or delimited) from the next by a space.  The variable names provided by the census are

listed at the top.  It is not necessary that you keep these names.  You could rename them later (in Excel, for example).

If you wil be using Epi-Info, the program will only accept a name 8 characters long so the first 2 variables (FIPS.STATE and FIPS.COUNTY) would have to be re-named later anyway.

Step 7:  Save the data file to your computer

Select File...Save As....call it CENSWWW select TXT as type and put the file in the root of your C drive or some location you will remember.

Step 8: Convert the file to Excel or Dbase formats

You can open this file in Excel (or some other speadsheet program) and save it to that format.

If you want to convert the file to a dbf type then you can export the Excel file you created above to a dbf file.