Data sources
Every dataset AreaProfile collects, with what it is used for, how often it updates, the terms it is published under, and when AreaProfile last imported it.
19 active sources · 2,706,298 normalized measurements · 4,371,227 historical data points
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
Official airport identifiers, names, coordinates, operating status and runway dimensions. AreaProfile derives its own airport classification from these published attributes; it is not an FAA hub designation.
Terms: U.S. Government work, public domain, published as FAA open data.
Attribution: Cite the Federal Aviation Administration. Not for navigational use.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. Must not be presented as suitable for navigation.
Summarized offense counts by law enforcement agency
Violent and property offenses reported to the FBI by individual police departments, with the population each department serves. Because the figures are published by department rather than by town, a city police department reports for its own city — which makes this the only crime measure AreaProfile publishes at city resolution. A city figure is published only where the department reported all twelve months of the year, because incomplete reporting is the single largest source of error in these statistics.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105). Published by the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
Attribution: Cite the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program. The FBI does not endorse AreaProfile or anything derived from this data, and cautions against ranking places on reported crime.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. Offenses are published by police department rather than by town, so AreaProfile matches a city department to its city by exact name within the same state, accepts only unambiguous matches, and records how the match was made on every figure.
National Risk Index
Natural-hazard risk, expected annual loss, social vulnerability and community resilience by county and census tract for 18 hazard types. AreaProfile preserves the per-hazard inputs and computes its own consumer-facing Physical Resilience presentation rather than re-labeling FEMA composites.
Terms: OpenFEMA Terms and Conditions: https://www.fema.gov/about/openfema/terms-conditions — U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright.
Attribution: Must cite FEMA as the source and state that FEMA does not endorse any derived product. AreaProfile-derived hazard ratings are labeled as AreaProfile calculations.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted with the FEMA non-endorsement statement.
U.S. Population Migration Data (county to county)
For every county, how many federal tax returns, and the people on them, moved in from elsewhere in the United States and moved out in a year, and the income reported on those returns. It compares the address on each return with the same filer’s return a year earlier. It counts people who file taxes and sees a move only when the address on a return changes, so it is a measure of where filers moved and not of every resident.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105). Published by the IRS for public use.
Attribution: Cite the Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income. The IRS does not endorse AreaProfile or anything derived from this data.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. The figures are published for counties; a city or ZIP carries its county’s and AreaProfile says so on every place that shows one. Small flows are suppressed by the IRS to protect filers.
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
Thirty-year monthly normals for temperature, precipitation and snowfall at official observing stations. Used for the climate profile, which is distinct from current weather.
Terms: U.S. Government work, open access. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/
Attribution: Cite NOAA NCEI and the 1991–2020 normals period.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted.
National Weather Service current conditions
Current observed conditions from the nearest reporting station, read live when a profile is opened rather than stored. Held deliberately to a compact contextual module beside the climate normals — AreaProfile is not a weather service, and nothing from this source enters a score.
Terms: U.S. Government work, public domain. https://www.weather.gov/disclaimer
Attribution: Cite the National Weather Service.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted; not to be presented as an official forecast.
Regional price parities and county personal income
Price parities measure what a dollar buys in one place against the national average of 100, for every metropolitan area, every state and the non-metropolitan portion of each state. It is a price level for all consumption rather than a household budget, and its spread is driven mostly by housing — but it is measured, national and explained, which is what AreaProfile requires before publishing a cost figure.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105). Published by the BEA for public use.
Attribution: Cite the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The BEA does not endorse AreaProfile or anything derived from this data.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. Parities are published for metropolitan areas and states, not for individual towns, and AreaProfile says so on every place that carries one.
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
Monthly labor force, employment and unemployment for states, counties, cities of 25,000 or more and metropolitan areas. AreaProfile stores the complete historical series rather than only the latest value.
Terms: U.S. Government work, public domain. https://www.bls.gov/bls/linksite.htm
Attribution: Cite the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. BLS requires a User-Agent with a contact email for automated downloads.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted.
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
Metropolitan-area occupational employment counts and wage percentiles used for wage context.
Terms: U.S. Government work, public domain. https://www.bls.gov/bls/linksite.htm
Attribution: Cite the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS program and the reference year.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted.
2020 Geographic Relationship Files
Official record-level relationships between 2020 census geographies (tract↔ZCTA, ZCTA↔county, place↔county) used to build AreaProfile weighted crosswalks instead of joining on place names.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105).
Attribution: Cite the U.S. Census Bureau 2020 relationship files.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. Relationship weights are stored with their basis.
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
Demographic, income, housing, education, employment and commuting estimates for states, counties, places and ZIP Code Tabulation Areas. AreaProfile reads the Census Bureau’s published summary tables directly, so every figure traces to a release anyone can download.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105). Census Bureau Terms of Service: https://www.census.gov/data/developers/about/terms-of-service.html
Attribution: Cite the U.S. Census Bureau and the specific ACS release. AreaProfile is not endorsed by the Census Bureau.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. Margins of error are retained alongside every estimate.
Building Permits Survey
Monthly and year-to-date residential building permits by county, place, state and CBSA. AreaProfile stores the full historical series and derives its own Development Momentum signal from it. Puerto Rico never appears in these mainland files; the Census Bureau publishes it separately, once a year, in its own Island Areas release, and AreaProfile reads that file directly rather than leaving Puerto Rico’s 81 municipios without a growth figure.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105).
Attribution: Cite the U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey and the reference period.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. Revised figures replace preliminary ones and are re-snapshotted.
Gazetteer Files
Authoritative names, FIPS codes, land/water area and internal-point coordinates for states, counties, places and ZCTAs. Forms the backbone of the AreaProfile canonical geography layer.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105).
Attribution: Cite the U.S. Census Bureau Gazetteer Files and the vintage year.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted.
Population Estimates Program
Annual July 1 population estimates for states, places, counties and metropolitan areas. The state total sits in the same county-file release as a row of its own, so it costs no separate fetch. AreaProfile uses these for population trend because consecutive ACS five-year estimates share four years of sample and the Census Bureau advises against comparing them; these estimates are designed for year-over-year comparison.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105).
Attribution: Cite the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program and the vintage year.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. Estimates are revised each vintage; AreaProfile snapshots each release.
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
Deaths by homicide, suicide, firearm and drug overdose for every US county, as crude rates per 100,000 residents — not age-adjusted, matching how CDC itself defines the rate in this dataset’s own data dictionary — from provisional death certificate records. AreaProfile publishes the homicide, firearm and overdose rates as measured context and does not score them: the data is county-level, and a county can contain both a dense city center and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105). Published openly by the CDC.
Attribution: Cite the National Center for Health Statistics. CDC does not endorse AreaProfile or anything derived from this data.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. A count of one to nine is suppressed at source and published only as that band, and a rarer ten-to-fifty band covers some still-small counties the same way; both are modeled rather than a plain crude rate, per CDC’s own rate-modeled flag. A zero is reported outright, so a rate of zero here is a measured zero, not a withheld one. AreaProfile stores the published rate and records which band the suppressed count fell into, rather than inferring a value.
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
Directory, enrollment and staffing for every public school in the United States, together with the reading and mathematics proficiency rates districts report to EDFacts. Accessed through the Urban Institute’s education data service, which republishes the NCES releases without alteration.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105). Republished by the Urban Institute under its own published terms.
Attribution: Cite the National Center for Education Statistics, and the Urban Institute as the route by which it was obtained. Neither endorses AreaProfile or anything derived from this data.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. Proficiency rates are published as ranges for small groups to protect student privacy; AreaProfile stores the midpoint of the published range and says so.
Fair Market Rents
HUD’s administrative estimate of the 40th percentile of rents paid by recent movers, by bedroom count. Published for most metropolitan areas at ZIP-code level, which makes it the finest-grained housing cost figure AreaProfile carries. It is set for housing assistance programs rather than surveyed from listings, and it is the closest published figure to what someone signing a lease today would pay — a different question from the census figure for rent currently being paid — that one includes long-standing tenancies at older terms, and the gap between the two is itself worth seeing.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105). Published by HUD for public use.
Attribution: Cite the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD does not endorse AreaProfile or anything derived from this data. Fair Market Rents are set for housing assistance programs and are an administrative standard, not a survey of asking rents.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. Small Area figures are published for metropolitan ZIP codes only; elsewhere the county figure is the finest available, and AreaProfile says which one a page is showing.
Daily Air Quality Index by county
Daily Air Quality Index readings from the EPA monitoring network, aggregated by AreaProfile into an annual median, a 90th percentile and a count of days above 100. The EPA publishes a county only where a monitor sits in it, so about a fifth of the 3,222 US counties are covered, which works out to a little over half of the counties AreaProfile publishes. The rest are absent rather than estimated.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105). Published openly by the EPA.
Attribution: Cite the EPA Air Quality System. The EPA does not endorse AreaProfile or anything derived from this data.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. The daily file is used rather than the ready-made annual summary because the annual one keys on state and county names, and AreaProfile does not join geography by name string.
House Price Index (traditional, all-transactions)
A repeat-sales index of home prices: it follows the same houses through successive sales, so it measures how much prices have moved without being swayed by which kinds of home happened to sell. Published quarterly for every state and about four hundred metropolitan areas, and for the non-metropolitan parts of most states, with histories reaching back to 1975. It draws on mortgages bought or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so it says little about cash purchases, jumbo loans or markets made mostly of new construction.
Terms: U.S. Government work, not subject to domestic copyright (17 U.S.C. §105). Published by the FHFA for public use.
Attribution: Cite the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The FHFA does not endorse AreaProfile or anything derived from this data.
Redistribution: Redistribution permitted. The index is published for metropolitan areas, metropolitan divisions and states, not for individual towns; AreaProfile says so on every place that carries one.
How a source gets added
Before AreaProfile ingests anything it has to answer yes to all of these: does it answer a question someone actually asks about a place; is coverage broad enough to compare locations; is the methodology understandable; is the update cadence useful; is the source sustainable; can its geography be mapped reliably; can historical values be preserved; are its terms compatible; and does it materially improve a profile. A source that fails any of these is not added, however interesting it is.
Where a dataset cannot be obtained on terms that allow it to be republished, or is not available broadly enough to compare places fairly, it is left out — and the gap is named on the profile itself rather than quietly filled. Taxes are the one most often asked for, and what is and is not published is set out on the methodology page.