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RandoDando
Pyrite | Level 9

Wasn't sure where to post this, but since it pertains to the mapping facility I chose this forum.

 

When creating a map of counties by state, I realized that the map for SD was missing a county in the SW part of the state.  I identified the county (Oglala Lakota County, FIPS = 46102) and it is found in all of my data sets EXCEPT the MAPSGFK.US_COUNTIES set in SAS.  Thinking there was an issue with the dataset, I downloaded the transport file for US_COUNTIES from SAS Support , imported it using CIMPORT, and it also is missing this county.  I haven't noticed any others from the output I have run thus far which isn't to say there aren't any others missing in the entire set.

 

Looks like the county was renamed in 2015.  Maybe this was why the county was removed?

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ballardw
Super User

The county was apparently renamed from Shannon county in 2015, which had FIPS 46113.

 

For mapping change your data to use 46113 and you'll like be okay.

 

I really thought that they wouldn't change FIPS codes for nonsense like this because now every data set in the country that has data crossing that 2015 boundary has to adjust FIPS codes one way or the other to be constant. Which may be why the SAS MAPS and MAPSGSFK don't show the newer value as then older data sets can't be mapped properly because then 46113 wouldn't map.

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ballardw
Super User

The county was apparently renamed from Shannon county in 2015, which had FIPS 46113.

 

For mapping change your data to use 46113 and you'll like be okay.

 

I really thought that they wouldn't change FIPS codes for nonsense like this because now every data set in the country that has data crossing that 2015 boundary has to adjust FIPS codes one way or the other to be constant. Which may be why the SAS MAPS and MAPSGSFK don't show the newer value as then older data sets can't be mapped properly because then 46113 wouldn't map.

RandoDando
Pyrite | Level 9
Similar to that, I took the new counties data set and modified the records with county code 113 to 102. It's easier for me to modify the *ahem* static data set. The others are getting updated periodically, and already contain the new FIPS code.
ballardw
Super User

@RandoDando wrote:
Similar to that, I took the new counties data set and modified the records with county code 113 to 102. It's easier for me to modify the *ahem* static data set. The others are getting updated periodically, and already contain the new FIPS code.

Don't blame you. Just be aware of the vintage of any other data you use to look for this.

I pulled out county level information to make custom state maps for my state so that I had smaller sets to play with and added additional county information to the result to match the different ways "county" gets referenced.

 

You may also want to check the SASHELP.ZIPCODE data set. I suspect it will have the wrong county name and FIPS there as well.

GraphGuy
Meteorite | Level 14

Since maps (borders, names, etc) change over time, it's always a good practice to make sure the vintage of your map matches the vintage of the data you're plotting.

 

With the SAS maps in the mapsgfk library, we generally put the year of the map data in the dataset label. A few ways to see the dataset label info is to:

 

  • run 'vt mapsgfk.us_counties' in DMS sas command line (to bring up the table viewer), and then look in the top border of the vt window
  • or run proc contents data=mapsgfk.us_counties; in the sas program editor
  • or submit 'options details;' in your DMS sas program editor, and then change your focus to the SAS explorer window, run the File->Details pulldown menu from the top of the page, and scroll right to see the 'Description' column in the SAS explorer.

 

In 9.4 maintenance 6 sas (which is probably the most current version available to most users), the mapsgfk.us_counties dataset label says "United States - Source: GfK GeoMarketing - 2014" (and a previous comment indicates the county name was changed in 2015, so the 2014 maps wouldn't have that change). It usually takes a while for the map changes to trickle-down from the government, to GfK, to SAS, to our customers ... but we're working on speeding up that process! 🙂

 

 

I am currently processing the latest GfK maps, which we'll probably make available soon-ish (this fall?), and it uses 2018 map data (and contains Oglala Lakota County).

 

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