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 and related geographic information to local data users. Their access to this manual should prove beneficial to everyone involved.

The individual chapters of the Geographic Areas Reference Manual deal with specific geographic subjects or the specific kinds of geographic entities used in the various censuses and sample surveys conducted by the Census Bureau. Each chapter stands alone as a reference source for a particular type of geographic entity or a specific subject; however, it often is useful to interrelate the geographic information in two or more chapters to develop a comprehensive understanding of broader topics.

These chapters encompass the standard geography that the Census Bureau uses in presenting information from its decennial censuses of population and housing as well as its other censuses, sample surveys, and statistical programs. The internal structure of the chapters on geographic entities follows a common pattern. An introductory section defines the geographic entity (or more typically, the set of entities) under discussion and describes its relevance to the Census Bureau’s statistical programs. Other sections provide information on the historical development of the entity, its definitional criteria and guidelines, its delineation procedures, and its relationships to other components of the Census Bureau’s hierarchy of geographic entities.

The first three chapters provide background information about the Census Bureau’s geographic concepts, an overall rationale for the selection and use of specific geographic entities by the Census Bureau, and the participants in the processes required to establish the geographic framework for each census and sample survey. The latter also assist the Census Bureau with the task of disseminating the resulting geographic information and statistical data.

One important category of geographic entities includes the major civil divisions of the Nation and its territories, that is, States, counties, American Indian and Alaska Native areas, and Census Bureau Geography1-9