The following maps show the distribution of African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics (as defined in the U.S. censuses) in Sacramento for 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000. Data are in percentage form and at the census tract level. The definitions of these groups used by the Census Bureau were not uniform from decade to decade, nor was the definition of the Sacramento metropolitan area. Still, these maps tell the general story of the evolving residential patterns of these ethnic groups.

	Black Hispanic Asian
		Click on a category above to view whole series of maps

Technical notes

Technical notes, prepared by Chris Dougherty, on the preparation of the maps are included below. Chris Dougherty and Professor Robin Datel wish to acknowledge the support of this project by a Research and Creative Activity Award from California State University Sacramento during 2003-2004. For more information about the maps or about historical research into the stories behind the map patterns, please contact Professor Datel at datel@csus.edu. We also encourage you to visit the Census Bureau's website at http://factfinder.census.gov.

Data Files Used

• 1970-2000 Equivalency File
o source: California Dept of Finance
• 1990-2000 Equivalence File (125 Variable)
o source: California Dept of Finance
• 1960 US Census
• 1950 US Census

Spatial Files Used

• 2000 Census tract boundary file
o source: US Census web site
• 1990 Census tract boundary file
o source: US Census web site

Processes Applied

1990 -2000
The maps for 1990 and 2000 were generated from joining the data in the 1990-2000 Equivalence File to the 2000 census tract boundary file. The files were joined using the tract field. Due to the 125 variables a legend was created for later reference.

1970-1980
The maps for 1970 and 1980 were generated from joining the data in the 1970-2000 Equivalence File to the 1990 census tract boundary file.

1960
The maps for 1960 were more difficult to generate than 1970 -2000 due to the lack of both spatial and census data available electronically. The spatial file was made by dissolving the 1990 census tract file to the “tract base” field. All census data for this file had to be inputted by hand in Excel then converted to a .DBF file then finally joined to the manipulated spatial file.

1950
The 1950 maps were the largest challenge. Like 1960, there was both a lack of spatial and census data. Due to the radical modification of the census tract boundaries from 1950 to 1960 simple geoprocessing was not an option. Therefore the boundary had to be digitized by hand. To ensure accurate boundaries were drawn, I scanned the graphic in the 1950 census hard copy and georeferenced the file. This allowed me to accurately trace the boundaries. The data for 1950, like 1960, needed to be entered in by hand. The same methods were applied as in 1960.