Related Guides
Demographic Data
- Multiracial in Greater Boston (Boston Indicators) The United States is a nation of immigrants. And so is the region of Greater Boston. We’ve gone through waves of being more and less open to immigration, but the effect across recent generations has been a steadily diversifying population. Not only is racial diversity increasing in the aggregate, but a growing number of families are forming across racial and ethnic lines. Today, for instance, one in five babies born in Massachusetts is of mixed race or Latino ethnicity. The report
- Noncitizens Living in Boston, 2022 (Boston Planning & Development Agency In 2020, there were approximately 97,000 non US citizens living in Boston, making up about 14% of the city's population. This presentation is a profile of these residents. The top countries of origin for noncitizen adults in Boston are China, Dominican Republic, and El Salvador.
- Great Migration to Global Immigration: A Profile of Black Boston, 2023 (Boston Indicators) Great Migration to Global Immigration: A Profile of Black Boston analyzes the region’s unique and growing intra-Black diversity, explores how the growing Black middle-class has helped revitalize cities and towns outside of Boston’s inner core, and details how disparities by income and wealth manifest across Black communities.
- Those who Come and Those who Leave: A Profile of Migration, 2022 (Boston Planning & Development Agency) Boston's migration patterns are marked by net positive international migration and net negative regional migration. This presentation profiles residents who move to Boston and those residents who leave Boston to live elsewhere.
- 2020 U.S. Census Redistricting Data Release August 2021 (Boston Planning & Development Agency) The U.S. Census Bureau conducts the decennial census every ten years to provide an official count of the entire U.S. population to Congress for apportionment of taxes and representation in the House of Representatives. The Census Bureau counted residents in the United States on April 1st, 2020 and asked a short set of additional questions, such as age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, and owner/renter status.
- Census Tract Racial Composition Data Changes Since 1990 (Washington Post) A Washington Post analysis of newly released tract-level census data reveals the shifting racial composition of neighborhoods nationwide.
- Household Pulse Survey (Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metro Area The Household Pulse Survey is designed to deploy quickly and efficiently, collecting data on a range of ways in which people’s lives have been impacted by the pandemic. Data will be disseminated in near real-time to inform federal and state response and recovery planning.
- Boston by the Numbers 2020 (Boston Planning & Development Agency) This report by the Boston Planning and Development Agency Research Division is a short reference guide to the city of Boston. It breaks down the population by age group, gender, and nativity. It also looks at Boston's colleges and universities, housing, and land use. This report uses data from the 2018 1-year American Community survey, which are the most recent available at the time of publication.
- Neighborhood Atlas (University of Wisconsin) The Neighborhood Atlas website was created in order to freely share measures of neighborhood disadvantage with the public, including educational institutions, health systems, not-for-profit organizations, and government agencies, in order to make these metrics available for use in research, program planning, and policy development.
- American Community Survey 2015-2019: Boston (Boston Planning & Development Agency) Boston in Context: Neighborhoods compares the United States, Massachusetts, Boston, and Boston’s neighborhoods across several social, economic, and housing characteristics. These data are from the 2015-2019 American Community Survey (ACS).
- Historical Trends in Boston Neighborhoods since 1950 (BPDA Research Division) This report uses the 1950-2000 Decennial Censuses for historical data.
- Building AAPI Power: A Profile of AAPI Communities in Greater Boston (Boston Indicators, Nov 2021) To help inform efforts to support our region’s diverse AAPI communities, the report aims to provide a more nuanced profile of AAPI communities than is often presented in the public discourse. Too often researchers report aggregate numbers for racial groups, rather than disaggregating by country of origin. For AAPI populations especially, using only aggregate data markedly skews analysis. While more than 80 percent of working-age Indian Americans in Greater Boston are college-educated, for
- The Social Capital Atlas Social capital – the strength of our relationships and communities – has been shown to play an important role in outcomes ranging from income to health. Using privacy-protected data on 21 billion friendships from Facebook, we measure three types of social capital in each neighborhood, high school, and college in the United States.
- Explore Census Data Data.census.gov is the new platform to access data and digital content from the U.S. Census Bureau. The data.census.gov platform is built on the Census Data application programming interface, or API, which provides users with direct access to the data they want.
- Massachusetts Redistricting Lookup (Leventhal Map & Education Center) Quick tool for determining what districts an address will belong to in the 2020 Massachusetts state redistricting plan. Every ten years, after the decennial census, the states are required to redraw the maps of their electoral districts. The Massachusetts General Court has released their proposed maps for the State House and Senate.
- IPUMS USA (integrated Public Use Microdata Series) IPUMS USA collects, preserves and harmonizes U.S. census microdata and provides easy access to this data with enhanced documentation. Data includes decennial censuses from 1790 to 2010 and American Community Surveys (ACS) from 2000 to the present.
- IPUMS CPS PUMS CPS harmonizes microdata from the monthly U.S. labor force survey, the Current Population Survey (CPS), covering the period 1962 to the present. Data include demographic information, rich employment data, program participation and supplemental data on topics such as fertility, tobacco use, volunteer activities, voter registration, computer and internet use, food security, and more.
- IPUMS NHGIS The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides easy access to summary tables and time series of population, housing, agriculture, and economic data, along with GIS-compatible boundary files, for years from 1790 through the present and for all levels of U.S. census geography, including states, counties, tracts, and blocks.
- Census OnTheMap OnTheMap is a web-based mapping and reporting application that shows where workers are employed and where they live. It also provides companion reports on age, earnings, industry distributions, race, ethnicity, educational attainment, and sex.
- CensusScope An easy-to-use tool for investigating U.S. demographic trends, brought to you by the Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN) at the University of Michigan.
- Census Business Builder (CBB) The Census Business Builder (CBB) is a suite of services that provide selected demographic and economic data from the Census Bureau tailored to specific types of users in a simple to access and use format.
- National Equity Atlas A comprehensive resource for data to track, measure, and make the case for racial equity and inclusive prosperity in America’s regions, and states, and nationwide. The Atlas contains data on demographic change, racial and economic inclusion, and the potential economic gains from racial equity for the largest 100 cities, largest 150 regions, all 50 states, and the United States as a whole.
- Quick Facts: Boston, Massachusetts (Census.gov) Quick facts on people, businesses, and geography for Boston from the US Census Bureau.
- Massachusetts Population Estimates by City and Town (UMass Amherst) On an annual basis, the U.S. Census Bureau develops updated population estimates for cities, towns, and other sub-county geographies. To create these estimates, the Census Bureau takes the county-level estimates released earlier this year, distributes the household population to each town based on updated housing unit estimates, and adds the updated group quarters population for each.
