Where can I find a shapefile that contains boundaries for the major cities in the United States?
I have tried the census website but could not find anything.
censusdatashapefileunited-states
Where can I find a shapefile that contains boundaries for the major cities in the United States?
I have tried the census website but could not find anything.
Best Answer
Getting the Data
You can acquire US Census Place Data, which includes cities, here.
For instance, Rhode Island's 2017 Place Data is available here.
For ease of bulk downloading, the full list 2017 place data is:
Interpreting the Data
The technical documentation for the 2017 US Census Data is available here. I found it by searching for "namelsad classfp" on Google (unusual field names from the shapefiles acquired previously).
Search the file for "_place" (with the underscore) to find the meanings of the fields in the shapefiles acquired previously. These are:
You'll then want to know the values of the
CLASSFP
column. These are available here. Some of the relevant ones are: