docs/us_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 aTier A: canonical Census county geography.

grain

county

years

—

cadence

Annual (county FIPS rarely change)

overview

3,222 rows — one per US county / county-equivalent, incl. DC, territories, and CT planning regions.

current vintage — 2023

provenance

source & licensing

authority

U.S. Census Bureau

dataset

Census Gazetteer / county FIPS reference

source url

https://www.census.gov/geographies/reference-files/time-series/geo/gazetteer-files.html

license

Public domain (U.S. Federal Government work)

citation

U.S. Census Bureau, county FIPS / Gazetteer reference files, 2023.

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.Part of primary key. 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

not provided

usage

how to use this table

method

Loaded from the Census county reference file; no derivation.

do not use for

Historical county boundaries (use crosswalk_legacy_county for retired FIPS).

← previousus_dimension.cbsas next →us_dimension.crosswalk_legacy_county

last updated · Jul 7, 2026