Data sources
Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) uses County Boundaries as building blocks for CBSAs. Minor Civil Divisions (MCDs) are used to provide correspondence to New England City and Town Areas (NETCAs).
Boundary layer
The CBSA boundary layer contains regions, each representing a single CBSA boundary. Boundaries may extend into coastal waters. The file name for this layer is cbsa_b. The file name of the layer with coastal shoreline boundaries is cbsa_j.
Inventory layer
The inventory layer contains point representations for each CBSA entity. Each inventory centroid is a balance point of a polygon. The centroid is calculated based on the coordinate extremes of the polygon, so that the centroid falls within the largest polygon of the feature. There is only one centroid per feature. The file name for the inventory layer aligned with the cbsa_b boundary ayer is cbsa_i. The file name of the inventory layer aligned with the cbsa_j layer is cbsa_m.