Census Atlas of the United States

* Census 2000 Reports

We are pleased to present the complete content, in PDF format, of the recently published Census Atlas of the United States, the first comprehensive atlas of population and housing produced by the Census Bureau since the 1920s. The Census Atlas is a large-format publication about 300 pages long and containing almost 800 maps. Data from decennial censuses prior to 2000 support nearly 150 maps and figures, providing context and an historical perspective for many of the topics presented. A variety of topics are covered in the Census Atlas, ranging from language and ancestry characteristics to housing patterns and the geographic distribution of the population. A majority of the maps in the Census Atlas present data at the county level, but data also are sometimes mapped by state, census tract (for largest cities and metropolitan areas), and for selected American Indian reservations. The book is modern, colorful, and includes a variety of map styles and data symbolization techniques.

Harvard Map Collection Digitizes Historic Cambridge and Boston Atlases

September 6, 2007 - The Harvard Map Collection's atlases of historic Cambridge have much to reveal about the city and the University's past. Looking at these oversized documents, for instance, one learns that 135 years ago, Harvard students boarded their horses in the University stables where current day John Harvard's Brew House operates and that as of 1903 the John Harvard statue sat, not outside University Hall, but by Memorial Hall. Now the Map Collection has made it easier for those researching local history to use its Boston and Cambridge atlases by digitizing these volumes and making them available online to the public.

“The two kinds of atlases we’ve recently digitized for Cambridge and Boston are called fire insurance and land ownership atlases,” says David Cobb, Curator of the Harvard Map Collection. “They’re unique and very significant, and they really provide far more detail than the regular maps of Cambridge and Boston.”