Using the ACS API

How to use the US Census API to retrieve demographic data for specific locations based on latitude and longitude values provided in a CSV file.

Introduction

This documentation provides an overview and explanation of the code snippet provided. The code is written in Python and utilizes the Census API to retrieve demographic data for specific locations based on latitude and longitude values provided in a CSV file. The retrieved data is processed and stored in a list, which is then converted into a formatted table and saved to a CSV file.

Code Explanation

Below is a step-by-step explanation of the code:

1. Installation: Before running the code, ensure that the census and tabulate packages are installed. If not, you can install them by running the following command:

   # Commented out IPython magic to ensure Python compatibility.
   # %pip install census

2. Importing Required Libraries: The necessary libraries are imported at the beginning of the code:

   import csv
   from census import Census
   from tabulate import tabulate

3. Setting up the Census API: To use the Census API, an API key is required. Replace "xyz123" with your actual API key:

   api_key = "xyz123"  # Replace with your actual API key
   census_client = Census(api_key)

4. Creating Data Storage: An empty list, census_data_list, is created to store the retrieved census data:

   census_data_list = []

5. Specifying CSV File Path: Specify the actual path to your CSV file by replacing "/content/fcoi.csv":

   csv_file_path = "/content/fcoi.csv"  # Replace with the actual path to your CSV file

6. Reading CSV File: The CSV file is opened using csv.DictReader to read the file and treat each row as a dictionary:

   with open(csv_file_path, "r") as csv_file:
       csv_reader = csv.DictReader(csv_file)

7. Retrieving Census Data: For each row in the CSV file, latitude and longitude values are extracted, and a request is made to the Census API to retrieve relevant data:

   for row in csv_reader:
       state = row["STATEFIPS"]
       county = row["COUNTYFIPS"]
       tract = row["TRACT"]
       latitude = row["latitude"]  # Replace with the correct column name for latitude
       longitude = row["longitude"]  # Replace with the correct column name for longitude
   
       census_data = census_client.acs5.state_county_tract(
           ("NAME","B01003_001E", "B01001_002E", "B01001_026E", "B01001B_001E", "B01001I_001E", "B06012_004E"),
           state,
           county,
           tract,
           year=2020,
           lat=latitude,
           lon=longitude
       )

8. Processing Census Data: The retrieved census data is processed by iterating over the results and extracting the required information:

   for result in census_data:
       name = result["NAME"]
       total_population = result["B01003_001E"]
       male_population = result["B01001_002E"]
       female_population = result["B01001_026E"]
       black = result["B01001B_001E"]
       latino = result["B01001I_001E"]
       poverty = result["B06012_004E"]
   
       census_row = {
           "name": name,
           "total_population