Incorporated status of places, 1950-1980

Hello, I am looking for data indicating whether a Census place is incorporated or unincorporated for each decade from 1950-1980. I have explored the NHGIS Place Points files and the nominally integrated time series tables for places, but neither of these resources indicate incorporated status. Is there another data source on IPUMS that could provide this information?

Thank you!

Currently, unincorporated status for census places can be found using the NHGIS data finder tool for 1970 and 1980. There is no separate variable for it. Rather, status is indicated in the place name. Unincorporated place names for 1970 will have a “(U)” after the name to indicate that they are unincorporated. For 1980, unincorporated place names will be followed by a "CDP ‘’ for census-designated place. You want to make sure to select “Place (by State)” and one of the mentioned decennial years in the data finder tool. You will need to also select a source table to proceed to the extract, though any source table (such as total population) will work.

I did some looking on the census website for the other years you had mentioned and found scans of census tables from 1950 and 1960 that indicate incorporated status. IPUMS has not digitized these and I’m not aware if anyone else has.

Hope that helps!

Hi Ivan,

This is immensely helpful! Thank you so much for taking the time to look into this!

All best,
Kiara