How to know which TIGER/LINE shapefile correspond to an IPUMS extract file

USA
1

I am trying to understand how to pick the correct TIGER/LINE shapefiles that correspond to an IPUMS USA or CPS extract. For example, say I downloaded and extract of 2022 IPUMS data from IPUMS USA site. I am trying to figure out how to match this extract with the corresponding TIGER/LINE shapefile.

Part of the question is, how to determine the correct year for the TIGER/LINE shapefile. I know that there are 2 different years in the IPUMS extracts like SURVEY YEAR, and a reporting year (I don’t remember the exact variable name). So the SURVEY YEAR is the year in which the survey was conducted, and the reporting year is usually the year following the SURVEY YEAR. Would I need to find a TIGER/LINE shapefile that corresponds to the SURVEY YEAR or to the other variable I am calling “reporting year”?

Also, do all of the TIGER/LINE shapefiles have GEOID variable that match the GEOID variable in the IPUMS extracts–or do I need to write the GEOID manually from different fields in the data, such as the FIPS code, etc?

Also, I know that there are some recodings that have happened in the shapefiles and PUMA boundaries etc., such as in 2012. Is there a way identify the correct shapefiles that go with a data extract, based upon the variables in the extract? For example, is there some variable that indicates the correct shapefiles for 2012–or how would a user otherwise know which TIGER shapefile has the correct coding.

Sorry for being a little clumsy with my language, but after reading through the TIGER/LINE shapefile docs and the IPUMS docs, there is a lot to digest.

2

You may prefer to use the boundary files provided by IPUMS USA rather than the Census Bureau’s TIGER/Line files for this purpose. Our boundary file page identifies which ACS sample years correspond to each boundary file. Our files are based on the TIGER/Line files, but we clip out coastal areas—so boundaries follow coastlines—and we transform the coordinates to a conic projection suitable for nationwide maps. We also include multiple identifiers in our shapefiles, including a GISMATCH field that is a concatenation of the STATEFIP and PUMA codes from IPUMS USA samples. In 5-year samples, the PUMAs correspond to the survey year, given by MULTYEAR.