i read that MP 2006 comes with demographic data. Can I download updated data each year? I want to make yearly maps comparing membership distribution to ethnic population data. is there also data for past years?

Gary Willick

Some of the data does have multiple years. Microsoft do not supply annual updates - you have to buy the latest version of MapPoint (which is currently released on a 2-year cycle).

A lot of demographic data is available from the US Census Bureau. You can download most of this for free and then plot it in MapPoint. You may need to reformat the data - eg. by importing it into Excel; depending of the file being used.


Richard

Thaniks, Richard. I will check out past censi. Instead of upgrading MP in two years can't I just download current census data? Is there some advantage of a new MP over the census?

Gary

Well it is easier to use the built-in demographics than to import them. Also the more recent MapPoint should have updated region boundaries (zipcodes, counties, etc), as well as other things that might not interest you such as road updates, minor API tweaks, and bug fixes.


Richard

Since the census is just once every decade, I can't use that much of it because I need yearly data. I can search around for previous versoins of MP (2002, 2004 - anything before?) but are there any other sources of ethnic data for northeast towns and counties available (I can pay a little)?

Gary