docs/dimension/counties

counties

Canonical county dimension. One row per US county (3,143 rows including DC and territories). Primary key is county_id (5-character FIPS). All fact tables with county_id join here for county names and state membership.

tier acensus

grain

county

years

—

cadence

Updated with each decennial census; minor FIPS changes tracked annually

overview

3,143 US counties including DC and territories. Full national coverage.

current vintage — 2020 FIPS delineations

history — FIPS codes are stable; use this table as a static reference

provenance

source & licensing

authority

U.S. Census Bureau

dataset

TIGER/Line Shapefiles — County and Equivalent

source url

https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.html

methodology

https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/geo-areas/counties.html

license

Public domain (U.S. Federal Government work)

citation

U.S. Census Bureau, TIGER/Line Shapefiles, County and Equivalent (2020 vintage).

schema

fields

name	type	definition
country_id	string	ISO alpha-2 country code (always 'US' for domestic tables).
county_idkey	string	5-character FIPS code identifying the county.Joins dim.counties on county_id.
county_name	string	Human-readable county name corresponding to county_id.
state_id	string	2-character FIPS code identifying the state.Joins dim.states on state_id.

relationships

joins

primary key

county_id

common joins

All fact tables with county_id

dim.states on state_id

usage

how to use this table

do not use for

Sub-county geographies; use dim.crosswalk_zip_county for ZIP-to-county mapping

← previousdimension.cbsas next →dimension.crosswalk_zip_county

last updated · May 5, 2026