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Analyzing US Census Data in R

Learn to rapidly visualize and explore demographic data from the United States Census Bureau using tidyverse tools.

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4 Hours17 Videos59 Exercises
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Course Description

Analysts across industries rely on data from the United States Census Bureau in their work. In this course, students will learn how to work with Census tabular and spatial data in the R environment. The course focuses on the tidycensus package for acquiring data from the decennial US Census and American Community survey in a tidyverse-friendly format, and the tigris package for accessing Census geographic data within R. By the end of this course, students will be able to rapidly visualize and explore demographic data from the Census Bureau using ggplot2 and other tidyverse tools, and make maps of Census demographic data with only a few lines of R code.
  1. 1

    Census data in R with tidycensus

    Free

    In this chapter, students will learn the basics of working with Census data in R with tidycensus. They will acquire data using tidycensus functions, search for data, and make a basic plot.

    Play Chapter Now
    Census data in R: an overview
    50 xp
    Obtain and set your Census API key
    100 xp
    Getting Census data with tidycensus
    100 xp
    Basic tidycensus functionality
    50 xp
    Understanding tidycensus options
    100 xp
    Tidy and wide data in tidycensus
    100 xp
    Searching for data with tidycensus
    50 xp
    Loading variables in tidycensus
    100 xp
    Exploring variables with tidyverse tools
    100 xp
    Visualizing Census data with ggplot2
    50 xp
    Comparing geographies with ggplot2 visualizations
    100 xp
    Customizing ggplot2 visualizations of ACS data
    100 xp
  2. 2

    Wrangling US Census Data

    In this chapter, students learn how to use tidyverse tools to wrangle data from the US Census and American Community Survey. They also learn about handling margins of error in the ACS.

    Play Chapter Now
    Tables and summary variables in tidycensus
    50 xp
    Download and view a table of data from the ACS
    100 xp
    Get a summary variable and calculate percentages
    100 xp
    Census data wrangling with tidy tools
    50 xp
    Finding the largest group by county
    100 xp
    Recoding variables and calculating group sums
    100 xp
    Comparing ACS estimates for multiple years
    100 xp
    Working with margins of error in tidycensus
    50 xp
    Inspecting margins of error
    100 xp
    Using margin of error functions in tidycensus
    100 xp
    Calculating group-wise margins of error
    100 xp
    Visualizing margins of error from the ACS
    50 xp
    Quick visual exploration of ACS margins of error
    100 xp
    Customizing a ggplot2 margin of error plot
    100 xp
  3. 3

    US Census geographic data in R

    In this chapter, students will learn how to work with US Census Bureau geographic data in R using the tigris R package.

    Play Chapter Now
    Understanding census geography and tigris basics
    50 xp
    Getting Census boundary files with tigris
    100 xp
    Getting geographic features with tigris
    100 xp
    Understanding the structure of tigris objects
    100 xp
    Customizing tigris options
    50 xp
    TIGER/Line and cartographic boundary files
    100 xp
    Getting data as simple features objects
    100 xp
    Setting a cache directory
    100 xp
    Working with historic shapefiles
    100 xp
    Combining and joining census geographic datasets
    50 xp
    Combining datasets of the same tigris type
    100 xp
    Getting data for multiple states
    100 xp
    Joining data from an external data frame
    100 xp
    Plotting data with tigris and ggplot2
    50 xp
    Plotting simple features with geom_sf()
    100 xp
    Customizing geom_sf() plots
    100 xp
  4. 4

    Mapping US Census Data

    In this chapter, you will learn how to obtain feature geometry with the tidycensus package, and use ggplot2 and mapview to make customized static and interactive maps of US Census data.

    Play Chapter Now
    Simple feature geometry and tidycensus
    50 xp
    Getting simple feature geometry
    100 xp
    Joining data from tigris and tidycensus
    100 xp
    Shifting Alaska and Hawaii geometry
    100 xp
    Mapping demographic data with ggplot2
    50 xp
    Making a choropleth map
    100 xp
    Modifying map colors
    100 xp
    Customizing the map output
    100 xp
    Advanced demographic mapping
    50 xp
    Graduated symbol maps
    100 xp
    Faceted maps with ggplot2
    100 xp
    Interactive visualization with mapview
    100 xp
    Cartographic workflows with tigris and tidycensus
    50 xp
    Generating random dots with sf
    100 xp
    Obtaining data for cartography with tigris
    100 xp
    Making a dot-density map with ggplot2
    100 xp
    Next steps for working with demographic data in R
    50 xp

Collaborators

Collaborator's avatar
Chester Ismay
Collaborator's avatar
Becca Robins

Prerequisites

Introduction to the TidyverseVisualizing Geospatial Data in R
Kyle Walker HeadshotKyle Walker

Geography professor at TCU and spatial data science consultant

I work as a geography professor at TCU and as a spatial data science consultant. My research focuses on demographic change and migration in US cities and suburbs; demographic data visualization; and tools for open data science. I'm also the author of the tidycensus, tigris, and idbr R packages for working with US Census Bureau data.
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