Hi, my name is Faith and today I want to show you how to access data from the 2020 Island
Areas Censuses, which includes data for American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The 2020 Island Areas Censuses provide a wide range of demographic, social, economic and
housing information to meet the Island Areas’ data needs.
Other surveys, such as the American Community Survey (ACS), are not conducted in the Island
Areas.
Therefore, the Census Bureau used a long-form census questionnaire similar to the ACS questionnaire
used in the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
The data that we are looking at today come from the Demographic Profile tables, which
are available for each of these Island Areas.
The Demographic Profile tables include information on a variety of subjects, including age, race,
Hispanic origin, health insurance coverage, household income, and housing data.
There’s a lot I want to show you with this data, so let’s get started.
For our first example, let’s find all four Demographic Profiles for Pago Pago in American
Samoa.
To start, go to data.census.gov and click on the Advanced Search button found beneath
the search bar on the landing page.
I always like to select the geography first, so from the lower left side of the screen,
click on Geography, Place, American Samoa, click in the search bar right above the list
and enter “Pago Pago”, check the box for Pago Pago village, American Samoa.
Now let’s add the filter for the Demographic Profiles.
From the lower left side of the screen, click on Surveys, Decennial Census of Island Areas,
check the box for the American Samoa Demographic Profile.
With these selections made, click on the Search button in the lower right corner of the screen.
All four Demographic Profile tables return.
We have DP1, General Demographic Characteristics; DP2, Selected Social Characteristics; DP3,
Selected Economic Characteristics; and DP4, Selected Housing Characteristics.
For this example, let’s click on DP1, Selected Demographic Characteristics.
We can see that this table has a lot of different data available, including sex, age, race,
and Hispanic origin.
We can also see that it’s using the 2020 American Samoa Demographic Profile, which
is something of importance to note.
We’ll get into why this is in a few moments.
For now, let’s take a quick look at some of the buttons found in the ribbon above the
table.
You can click on the Notes button in the ribbon to view important information relevant to
this table, as well as find the link to the technical documentation.
The link to the technical documentation is provided below.
You can add additional geographies for American Samoa using the Geos button.
If you want to remove either of the columns from this table, you can use the Hide button.
The Transpose button will transpose the table.
If you hide columns or transpose the table and decide that you don’t want it formatted
that way anymore, you can use the Restore button to revert the table back to its original
format.
Now let’s say that I also want to look at these tables for Dededo, Guam.
Your first instinct may be to go over to the Geography filter on the left to add Dededo
to the table that way.
However, you won’t be able to successfully add any geographies from Guam, the Commonwealth
of the Northern Mariana Islands, or the U.S. Virgin Islands to this table as it stands.
The reason for this is something that I alluded to earlier; each Island Area has its own unique
Demographic Profile dataset.
We’re currently using the 2020 American Samoa Demographic Profile, and what this means
is that it’s not compatible with geographies from any of the other island areas.
In other words, the American Samoa Demographic Profile is only compatible with American Samoa
geographies.
So, if we want to find these tables for a place in Guam (or any other geographies in
Guam or the other two island areas), we’ll have to start a new search and use the Demographic
Profile that’s available for that specific island area.
The easiest way to start a new search is to click on the US Census Bureau logo in the
upper left corner of the screen.
Let’s use the Advanced Search again by clicking on the button beneath the search bar.
We’ll repeat the process that we did earlier for the village in American Samoa.
Let’s do the geography first.
From the lower left side of the screen, click on Geography, Place, Guam, click in the search
bar above the list and enter “Dededo”, check the box for Dededo CDP, Guam.
Now let’s add the filter for the Demographic Profiles.
From the lower left side of the screen, click on Surveys, Decennial Census of Island Areas,
check the box for the Guam Demographic Profile.
With these selections made, click on the Search button in the lower right corner of the screen.
As before, all four Demographic Profile tables return.
I want to look at the map for the housing characteristics table, DP4, so I’m going
to go straight there.
To get to the map for this table, click on the Maps tab right above the table list.
Then click on table DP4 to update the map with the data from that.
We can see that this map, as well as the tables, use the 2020 Guam Demographic Profile.
For this example, let’s take a quick look at the mapping functionality that we have
available.
The map defaults to showing data for the first line of the DP4 table, which is the total
number of housing units.
If you would like to view a different variable from the table, click on the Variables button
in the ribbon.
Then click on the chevron next to Total housing units—Number.
Using this list, you can search all the lines of the table until you find the variable that
you want.
Once you’ve done that, click on the Variables button again to close the panel.
Remember, too, that you can always refer back to the table by clicking on the Tables tab
if you need more context for the variables.
If you want to find out more about what you can do with the mapping functionality available,
please visit the tutorials that we have on our Resources page found at the link below.
I hope this tutorial has helped in learning how to find and use data from the Island Areas
Demographic Profiles.
For more guidance on using our site, please visit our Resources page at data.census.gov.