A census is a count of all of the members of a population. The US Census Bureau performs a full census of the United States every ten years, and surveys random representative samples of the population at shorter intervals. In addition to counting the number of people, the census surveys information about age, gender, race, ethnic heritage, income, work, housing and other characteristics.

In order to analyze the census results and make them useful to the population and the various levels of government, the Census Bureau groups the data into geographic areas. These range from very tiny areas like blocks, up to large areas like states and regions. The smallest areas have restrictions on use of their data, in order to prevent individual people from being identified or associated with census data.

There are areas that are large enough to protect individual privacy, but small enough to provide useful local information. These areas include census tracts, zip code tabulation areas, cities and counties. The Census Bureau refers to cities as places in most cases.

Census tracts are groups of streets generally reflecting about 2,000 people based on the most recent 2000 census. Census tracts are made up of blocks and block groups. However, you generally won't need to get information down to the block or block group level. Most of the information that we help you find will be at the

• census tract
• SPA, or statistical planning area
• city, or
• county level

Statistical Planning Areas are groups of census tracts that make up a Cleveland neighborhood. You might have heard of Cleveland neighborhoods like Kinsman, Central, Lee-Miles, Jefferson, Cudell, Ohio City and Detroit-Shoreway, among others. These are all names of the statistical planning areas, or SPAs, that correspond to Cleveland neighborhoods.

Wards are areas of a city represented in the city government, usually by a city council member. In Cleveland, each ward has about 25,000 citizens. Not all cities have wards, and since the ward boundaries generally do not follow census tracts, most data from the Census Bureau or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal agencies are not available at the ward level.

However, the ward lines generally can be aligned against blocks. Recently, the Center for Urban Poverty and Social Change has been able to map these blocks up to the ward level to provide information on wards. See their NEO-CANDO interactive database.