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What Are Federal and State FIPS Codes?

FIPS stands for Federal Information Processing Standards. In the geographic context, “FIPS codes” are standardized numeric identifiers for places in the United States, such as states and counties. They were originally created by the U.S. federal government so that all agencies could refer to the same geographic areas using the same code system.

The best-known geographic FIPS codes are:

• State FIPS codes – 2-digit numeric codes for each U.S. state and certain territories.
• County FIPS codes – 3-digit numeric codes for each county or county-equivalent within a state.
• Combined state–county FIPS codes – 5 digits: 2 for the state + 3 for the county (for example, 06 for California and 037 for Los Angeles County combine to 06037).

What Do FIPS Codes Do?

FIPS geographic codes provide a consistent, numeric key for linking data to locations. They are used to:

• Join data tables to maps in GIS (Geographic Information Systems).
• Standardize reporting of statistics such as population, income, health data, or election results.
• Support emergency alerting and weather warnings (for example, NOAA Weather Radio and the Emergency Alert System use FIPS-style codes to target alerts to specific counties).
• Organize large datasets so that multiple agencies and researchers can exchange data without ambiguity.

Who Uses FIPS Codes?

FIPS codes are used widely across government and data workflows, including:

• U.S. federal agencies (Census Bureau, FEMA, CDC, USDA, EPA, etc.).
• State and local governments for planning, taxation, elections, and public safety.
• GIS professionals and cartographers when building maps and spatial databases.
• Data analysts, researchers, and businesses (banks, insurers, marketing firms, real-estate portals, etc.) who need a reliable way to reference specific areas.

What Borders and Boundaries Do They Follow?

FIPS codes themselves are identifiers—they do not define boundaries; they point to areas whose boundaries are defined elsewhere (usually in law and official boundary files). In practice:

• State FIPS codes follow the official boundaries of U.S. states and state-equivalents (for example, the District of Columbia and some U.S. territories).
• County FIPS codes follow the legal county (or county-equivalent) boundaries used by the U.S. Census Bureau. This includes:
  • Counties in most states,
  • Parishes in Louisiana,
  • Boroughs and census areas in Alaska,
  • Independent cities in Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, and the District of Columbia,
  • County-equivalents in U.S. territories.
• For finer-grained areas (census tracts, block groups, census blocks), the numeric coding system is extended, and the boundaries are statistical areas defined by the Census Bureau, usually following roads, rivers, visible features, or local administrative lines.

When you download official Census shapefiles, those polygons come with state and county FIPS codes already attached, so you can join tables on FIPS fields.

How Many FIPS Codes Are There?

State-Level Codes

• The 2-digit state FIPS code list covers all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and several U.S. territories and similar areas.
• The numeric codes for actual states and D.C. run from 01 through 56.

County-Level Codes

• Each county or county-equivalent is assigned a 3-digit county FIPS code, unique within its state.
• Combined with the 2-digit state code, this yields a 5-digit state–county FIPS code (for example, 06037 for Los Angeles County, California).
• As of the early 2020s, there are about 3,244 counties and county-equivalents in the United States when you include territories, all of which have these 3-digit county codes.

Census Tracts and Below

• Census tracts expand this scheme: a typical tract identifier combines the 5-digit state–county code with a 6-digit tract code, forming an 11-digit geographic ID.
• Block groups and blocks extend this even further, giving very fine location keys used in Census and other datasets.

A Short History of FIPS Codes

• FIPS geographic codes were introduced around the time of the 1970 U.S. Census so federal agencies could use a single, standardized set of geographic identifiers.
• The main standards were:
  • FIPS PUB 5-1 / 5-2 – state codes (2-digit numeric and 2-letter alpha codes).
  • FIPS PUB 6-1…6-4 – county and county-equivalent codes (3-digit).
  • FIPS 55 – place codes for cities and other populated places (later replaced).
• These were created and published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which managed the Federal Information Processing Standards.
• In the 2000s, NIST withdrew the geographic FIPS standards (state, county, place, etc.) as formal FIPS publications and indicated that they would be replaced by industry-standard ANSI/INCITS codes and by GNIS identifiers for named places.
• Even though the standards were “withdrawn,” the same numeric codes continue to be used widely by the U.S. Census Bureau and many other users. Today you will see them referred to as ANSI/INCITS codes rather than official FIPS, but the numbers (like 06 for California or 06037 for Los Angeles County) are still the same in practice.

Who Maintains and Updates These Codes Now?

Several organizations are involved:

• ANSI / INCITS – The American National Standards Institute and its InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) publish and maintain the current code standards that replaced the old FIPS documents. These standards define the official lists of state and county codes.
• The U.S. Census Bureau – Implements these codes in official boundary files, and issues updates when counties are created, merged, renamed, or reclassified (for example, when a new county-equivalent is created).
• USGS / GNIS – For individual named features and populated places, the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) maintains permanent feature IDs that are now preferred over the older FIPS place codes.

When county or state boundaries change (new county, consolidated city–county, etc.), the Census Bureau and standards bodies update the relevant code lists, and those changes propagate into federal datasets and GIS.

Why FIPS Codes Still Matter

Even though the underlying standards have shifted from “FIPS” to “ANSI/INCITS” names on paper, the FIPS code system is still the backbone for a huge amount of U.S. geographic data. If you work with maps, demographics, real estate, elections, or emergency management, understanding FIPS codes is essential for correctly joining and comparing datasets across agencies and years.