CHASS Census Analyzer

This guide shows you how to use the CHASS Census Analyzer to download

census data.

• The CHASS Census Analyzer contains census profiles for multiple levels of geography, going back as far as 1961.

• Steps for downloading data in Census Analyzer1) Select census year and census geography2) Select census variables 3) Download files and save to your computer

2) Select

Census Geography

OR

Census Year

1) Go to http://dc.chass.utoronto.ca/census/

For this example, we will select by census year 2006.

You now see a list of available census geographies for the 2006 Census.

Scroll down to Census Tract (cumulative), and click on it.

You can now select the CMAs and CAs of interest to you.

For this example, we selected Montreal, and various population variables.

Note: You can select multiple variables by holding down the Shift-key.

Scroll down the page.

If you want to later visualize this data in a GIS software, make sure to tick off the box CTUID. This is the column you want to join with your census boundary file.

To visualize the data in a GIS software, download the file as a dBase (DBF) file.

You are now presented with a data file and a header file.

The data file contains the variables you selected to download.

The header file, which is reproduced at the bottom at this page, describes which column in the data file corresponds to which variable.

Download the data file by right-clicking on it and selecting “save link as.” Select a location on your computer to save file to.

Next Steps:

• Join this data with the census boundary files in your GIS software and visualize the data in the software

• For more information: http://guides.library.utoronto.ca/content.php?pid=387833&sid=3302228