# County Level Data
**URL:** https://forum.ipums.org/t/county-level-data/1753
**Category:** USA
**Created:** [May 25, 2017, 7:48pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/county-level-data/1753 "2017-05-25T19:48:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@JoshMahar](https://forum.ipums.org/u/JoshMahar)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2017, 7:48pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/county-level-data/1753/1 "2017-05-25T19:48:00Z")
Hi there,
Can someone explain to me what the deal is with the county level data not being available in recent years? Why did they stop imputting that information correctly?
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### Author:  [@JeffBloem](https://forum.ipums.org/u/JeffBloem)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2017, 2:24pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/county-level-data/1753/2 "2017-05-26T14:24:00Z")
The main reason is due to confidentiality restrictions. Some counties don’t have a large enough population to warrant geographic identification. Instead the [PUMA](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/PUMA#description_section) (public use microdata area) is the lowest level geographic area in public use data since 1950. It is sometimes possible to identify counties post-1950 by imputing based on other lower-level geographic identifiers. Please see [this spreadsheet](https://usa.ipums.org/usa/resources/volii/counties_1950_on.xls) for a summary of when specific counties are identifiable.
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### Author:  [@JoshMahar](https://forum.ipums.org/u/JoshMahar)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/county-level-data/1753/3 "2017-05-26T17:21:00Z")
Great thank you Jeff, very helpful answer. And I see that many of the PUMAs do indeed try and follow county lines, so that is helpful.