Geocode into US Census Geographies

Source: https://github.com/ilyankou/geocoder-for-google-sheets

If you have a spreadsheet of addresses, you may want to extrapolate relevant US 2010 Census information.

I had ~475 addresses and was not sure about the best way go about it.

Luckily, I stumbled upon a really helpful website created by Jack Dougherty and Ilya Ilyankou. In it, they talk about how to bulk Geocode your addresses using data from the 2010 US Census. Ilya’s GitHub page also houses this information.

Essentially, they wrote a script for GoogleSheets. The script can geocode your US addresses into latitude, longitude, GeoID, and census tract – so helpful!

If you would like to use this feature, you need to first make a copy of their Google Sheet template. Go to ‘File’ > ‘Make a Copy to your Google Drive.’

Second, you will copy and paste your US addresses into column A.

Third, you will select columns A-H and select the Geocoder menu: US Census 2010 Geographies.

Next, the script may ask for your permission to run. Wait a bit for the script to run; this could take a while depending on how many addresses you have. Then….

VoilĂ ! Now, your spreadsheet has addresses in column A, and GeoID and Census tract in columns G and H.

P.S. The other option is run a batch of addresses through the official US Census Geocoder website. That website can be found here. You do need to clean up your data first. The website usually worked for me, but sometimes did not.

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