Description: Geographic Boundaries for Census data

Sources: U.S. Census
Census Tract Shapefile
Census Unified School Zoning Shapefile

Download the .ZIP files and extract them.

Load packages

library(sp)
## Warning: package 'sp' was built under R version 3.2.2
library(rgdal)
## Warning: package 'rgdal' was built under R version 3.2.2
library(geosphere)
## Warning: package 'geosphere' was built under R version 3.2.2
library(rgeos)
## Warning: package 'rgeos' was built under R version 3.2.2
library(maptools)
## Warning: package 'maptools' was built under R version 3.2.2
## Checking rgeos availability: TRUE

Census tract

Outline of Census tracts for North Carolina.

Read shapefile

shpfile.tract <- "tl_2015_37_tract/tl_2015_37_tract.shp"
ogrListLayers(shpfile.tract)
## [1] "tl_2015_37_tract"
## attr(,"driver")
## [1] "ESRI Shapefile"
## attr(,"nlayers")
## [1] 1
censustract <- readOGR(shpfile.tract, "tl_2015_37_tract")
## OGR data source with driver: ESRI Shapefile 
## Source: "tl_2015_37_tract/tl_2015_37_tract.shp", layer: "tl_2015_37_tract"
## with 2195 features
## It has 12 fields
class(censustract)
## [1] "SpatialPolygonsDataFrame"
## attr(,"package")
## [1] "sp"
length(censustract)
## [1] 2195

Plot census tracts for NC

plot(censustract)

School zoning districts

Outline of public school zones for North Carolina.

Read shapefile

shpfile.schoolzone <- "tl_2015_37_unsd/tl_2015_37_unsd.shp"
ogrListLayers(shpfile.schoolzone)
## [1] "tl_2015_37_unsd"
## attr(,"driver")
## [1] "ESRI Shapefile"
## attr(,"nlayers")
## [1] 1
censusschool <- readOGR(shpfile.schoolzone, "tl_2015_37_unsd")
## OGR data source with driver: ESRI Shapefile 
## Source: "tl_2015_37_unsd/tl_2015_37_unsd.shp", layer: "tl_2015_37_unsd"
## with 118 features
## It has 14 fields
class(censusschool)
## [1] "SpatialPolygonsDataFrame"
## attr(,"package")
## [1] "sp"
length(censusschool)
## [1] 118

Plot school zones for NC

plot(censusschool)

Note that the school districts in North Carolina are surprisingly big in the Census data.

Schools and School Districts for Durham, Johnston, Orange, and Wake county

Some counties have their own open data portal that contains schools and/or school districts.

Durham
This is a page where you can download the locations of Durham public schools (not the school districts) in many formats.

Johnston
This is Johnston County’s GIS page, if you scroll down to “Schools and School District” you can download the shapefiles.

Orange
This is an interactive map of Orange County where you can highlight the schools (could not find a link to download the file).

Wake
If you scroll down to “Miscellaneous” there is a file called Wake_Schools_year_mo.zip.