smaller geographies "unknown/unsupported"

[sjcromer]

Hello! Thank you for this great package which I found from watching your Youtube tutorial.

I'm just getting started with ACS data and immediately encountered an issue with get_decennial() and get_acs(), both recognizing larger geographies (state, county, zcta) but not smaller geographies (tract, block). I am using the geography names you outlined here: https://walker-data.com/tidycensus/articles/basic-usage.html#geography-in-tidycensus Any advice?

Thanks for your help!

ct_race <- get_decennial(geography='zcta',variables='P013001',year=2010) Getting data from the 2010 decennial Census Using Census Summary File 1 ct_race

A tibble: 33,120 x 4

GEOID NAME variable value

1 77477 ZCTA5 77477 P013001 31.6 2 77478 ZCTA5 77478 P013001 44.3 3 77479 ZCTA5 77479 P013001 39 4 77480 ZCTA5 77480 P013001 39.6 5 77481 ZCTA5 77481 P013001 52.3 6 77482 ZCTA5 77482 P013001 40.3 7 77483 ZCTA5 77483 P013001 39.8 8 77484 ZCTA5 77484 P013001 37.7 9 77485 ZCTA5 77485 P013001 42.2 10 77486 ZCTA5 77486 P013001 40 # ... with 33,110 more rows ct_race <- get_decennial(geography='tract',variables='P013001',year=2010) Getting data from the 2010 decennial Census Error : Your API call has errors. **The API message returned is error: unknown/unsupported geography heirarchy.** Using Census Summary File 1 Error in UseMethod("gather") : no applicable method for 'gather' applied to an object of class "character"

[walkerke]

Thanks! If you get the hierarchy error, it means that your requested geography is not available at that hierarchy. In this case, tract-level data are available by state, but you haven't supplied a state. So this works:

library(tidycensus)

ct_race <- get_decennial(
  geography = 'tract',
  state = 'CT',
  variables = 'P013001',
  year = 2010
)
#> Getting data from the 2010 decennial Census
#> Using Census Summary File 1

ct_race
#> # A tibble: 833 × 4
#>    GEOID       NAME                                             variable value
#>    <chr>       <chr>                                            <chr>    <dbl>
#>  1 09009150300 Census Tract 1503, New Haven County, Connecticut P013001   43.3
#>  2 09009150600 Census Tract 1506, New Haven County, Connecticut P013001   42.5
#>  3 09009150700 Census Tract 1507, New Haven County, Connecticut P013001   42.6
#>  4 09009150900 Census Tract 1509, New Haven County, Connecticut P013001   45.1
#>  5 09009151000 Census Tract 1510, New Haven County, Connecticut P013001   46.2
#>  6 09009151100 Census Tract 1511, New Haven County, Connecticut P013001   44.2
#>  7 09009151200 Census Tract 1512, New Haven County, Connecticut P013001   46.2
#>  8 09009154100 Census Tract 1541, New Haven County, Connecticut P013001   35  
#>  9 09009154200 Census Tract 1542, New Haven County, Connecticut P013001   32.9
#> 10 09009154500 Census Tract 1545, New Haven County, Connecticut P013001   33.5
#> # … with 823 more rows

^{Created on 2022-12-07 with reprex v2.0.2}

ZCTAs can be requested for the entire US, so that's why the result is different.

I'd recommend reading the following section of my book for more info on this topic: https://walker-data.com/census-r/an-introduction-to-tidycensus.html#geography-and-variables-in-tidycensus