Separate lists of U.S. counties are maintained by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analytics and the U.S. Census Bureau: What are the differences? [Updated 16 February 2022.]
How do the two sources differ? For 47 states, datasets reported by BEA and BOC contain identical lists of counties. In the remaining three (Hawaii, Virginia, Wisconsin) their treatment differs for "independent cities" contained within counties:
- BEA reports "combination areas" consisting of a county and one or more cities (3,113 areas nationwide).
- BOC disaggregates county and city detail (3,221 areas).
How does Moody's Analytics identify the divergent areas? The U.S. federal document FIPS PUB 6-4 defined identifiers for "first-order subdivisions of each state and statistically equivalent entity," i.e., areas such as county, parish, borough, or independent city. We used these identifiers to create our geo codes for counties, with the pattern AAnnn -- two letters for the state, followed by three digits for the county within.
(Strictly speaking, "FIPS codes" no longer exist, but we continue to use the term for backwards compatibility. NIST no longer maintains standards for geographic areas, so FIPS 6-4 was retired in 2008 and replaced by ANSI INCITS 31-2009.)
BEA issues codes in the "9000" sequence to represent county/independent city combinations. For consistency with other county codes, we translate these to three-digit values.
For example:
| List | FIPS code | Geo code | Geo title |
|---|
| BEA |
51901 |
VA901 |
Albemarle County and Charlottesville city, VA |
| BOC |
51003 |
VA003 |
Albemarle County, VA |
| BOC |
51540 |
VA540 |
Charlottesville city, VA |
How many areas are there? As of the 1994 publication of BOC's Geographic Areas Reference Manual, there were 3,141 counties or statistical equivalents in the 50 states and District of Columbia, a number that sometimes changes. As of the "FIPS Modifications" spreadsheet currently posted by BEA, there are 25 points of divergence
- Geographic Areas Reference Manual - 3,141 areas
- BEA reporting - 3,113
- Census reporting - 3,221 (as of 2010)
What specific areas differ? There is one point of divergence in the state of Hawaii, one in Wisconsin, and 25 in Virginia (two of them terminated). See the attached concordance for a full list, including the FIPS codes, Data Buffet geo codes, and place names.
What definition does Moody's Analytics use? Our county forecasts align with BEA's definition, i.e., the shorter list of 3,113 counties.
How can I retrieve these areas? The Data Buffet "geo lists" feature lets you abbreviate entire sets of areas, to retrieve multiple series with a single basket entry. The pertinent predefined lists are CT_BEA.LST and CT_CEN.LST. For example, you can retrieve forecasted employment for a single county with FETA.VA003, or all BEA counties with FETA.CT_BEA.LST. This is more targeted than using a geo wildcard such as FETA.^^^^^, which (a) would retrieve unwanted matches, and (b) does not guarantee an ordering.
References
See also
Updates to this article
- Mar 2011 - Initial version
- May 2017
- Feb 2022 - Updated example, updated attachment, updated reference links