# How were PUMA and mini-PUMA identifiers assigned to each record in the 5% PUMS data?

**URL:** <https://forum.ipums.org/t/how-were-puma-and-mini-puma-identifiers-assigned-to-each-record-in-the-5-pums-data/2079>\
**Category:** USA\
**Created:** [December 17, 2017, 11:43pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/how-were-puma-and-mini-puma-identifiers-assigned-to-each-record-in-the-5-pums-data/2079 "2017-12-17T23:43:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Carl\_LA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@Carl\_LA](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Carl_LA)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 11:43pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/how-were-puma-and-mini-puma-identifiers-assigned-to-each-record-in-the-5-pums-data/2079/1 "2017-12-17T23:43:00Z")

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I understand how the 1960 PUMA and mini-PUMA geographic boundaries were created, but it is unclear what the methodology for populating these units was. Short of having the specific location of all respondents geo-coded, how did you know within which PUMA each record fell?

Is there a piece of the documentation I am missing?

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**Author:** ![MPC\_vanriper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@MPC\_vanriper](https://forum.ipums.org/u/MPC_vanriper)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2017, 1:26am UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/how-were-puma-and-mini-puma-identifiers-assigned-to-each-record-in-the-5-pums-data/2079/2 "2017-12-18T01:26:00Z")

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There is a description of the methodology on the [1960 PUMA and Mini-PUMA page](https://usa.ipums.org/usa/volii/1960geotools.shtml).

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**Author:** ![JonathanSchroeder](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.ipums.org/jonathanschroeder/32/70_2.png) [@JonathanSchroeder](https://forum.ipums.org/u/JonathanSchroeder)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2017, 2:58pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/how-were-puma-and-mini-puma-identifiers-assigned-to-each-record-in-the-5-pums-data/2079/3 "2017-12-18T14:58:00Z")

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To answer the specific question, “how did you know within which PUMA each record fell?”: As part of the [1960 Data Restoration Project](https://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/1960restoration.shtml), we obtained permission to access, within the [Minnesota Research Data Center](https://www.census.gov/about/adrm/fsrdc/locations/minnesota.html), the complete 1960 microdata records, which include the county and census tract of residence for all respondents. We then assigned each respondent to the PUMA and mini-PUMA corresponding to their county or tract.