Historical Data

The GIC has print copies of U.S. Census Bureau publications going back to 1790. Historical data for San Francisco can be traced back to the 1800s. Genealogy materials for San Francisco up to 1930 are also available. For specific areas of San Francisco, census tracts must be used, which change with each Decennial Census. The GIC has census tract maps beginning with 1940.

Race and Ethnic Population Statistics for San Francisco: 1852 and decades 1860 to 2000 (created by the Government Information Center [GIC])

The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides easy access to summary tables and time series of population, housing, agriculture, and economic data, along with GIS-compatible boundary files, for years from 1790 through the present and for all levels of U.S. census geography, including states, counties, tracts, and blocks.