lon_lat_from_area: Grab the longitude/latitude of the center of population of a census area

Description

The user specifies a census area, and the function returns the longitude/latitude coordinates of the area's center of population according to the decennial census.

Usage

lon_lat_from_area(geoid = NULL, state = NULL, county = NULL, year = 2020)

Value

A double vector of length 2. The first element is LONGITUDE (positive for east, negative for west). The second element is LATITUDE (positive for north, negative for south).

Arguments

geoid: A single string specifying the geoid of a census area. Must be 2, 5, 11, or 12 digits. Must be NULL if state is not NULL.
state: A single string containing the FIPS code, two-letter abbreviation, or full state name of a US state or the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico. Not case sensitive. Must be NULL if geoid is not NULL.
county: A single string specifying the name of a county in state or the three- or five-digit GEOID of a county in state. Not case sensitive. If entering a county name, it must match the beginning of only one of the county names in state. If entering a five-digit GEOID, it will throw an error if its first two digits do not match the GEOID of state. Must be NULL if state is NULL.
year: One of 2020, 2010, or 2000. Defaults to 2020.

Details

Centers of population are based on the decennial census. Only states, counties, tracts, and block groups are currently supported. See the documentation of the USpopcenters package and https://www.census.gov/geographies/reference-files/time-series/geo/centers-population.html for more information.

Requires the data package USpopcenters to be installed.

Examples

Run this code

if (requireNamespace("USpopcenters", quietly = TRUE)) {
 
# The center of population of Alaska
lon_lat_from_area(state = "alAskA")

# The center of population of Cook County, Illinois.
lon_lat_from_area(state = "IL", county = "Cook")

# The center of population of some tract in Manhattan
lon_lat_from_area(geoid = "36061021600")
}