tigris is an R package that allows users to directly download and use TIGER/Line shapefiles (https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.html) from the US Census Bureau.

To install the package from CRAN, issue the following command in R:

install.packages('tigris')

Or, get the development version from GitHub:

devtools::install_github('walkerke/tigris')

tigris functions return simple features objects with a default year of 2021. To get started, choose a function from the table below and use it with a state and/or county if required. You'll get back an sf object for use in your mapping and spatial analysis projects:

library(tigris)
library(ggplot2)

manhattan_roads <- roads("NY", "New York")

ggplot(manhattan_roads) + 
  geom_sf() + 
  theme_void()

tigris only returns feature geometries for US Census data which default to the coordinate reference system NAD 1983 (EPSG: 4269). For US Census demographic data (optionally pre-joined to tigris geometries), try the tidycensus package. For help deciding on an appropriate coordinate reference system for your project, take a look at the crsuggest package.

To learn more about how to use tigris, read Chapter 5 of the book Analyzing US Census Data: Methods, Maps, and Models in R.

Python users may also be interested in pygris, a Python port of the tigris package.

Available datasets:

Please note: cartographic boundary files in tigris are not available for 2011 and 2012.