Querying a variable using the ACS census API

Question

I'm looking here, which says this variable exists in the ACS1 2016 collection:

• https://api.census.gov/data/2016/acs/acs1/profile/variables/DP02_0001E.json

And is listed generally in the data dictionary for that collection.

But I query it in any of the formats listed here as examples, it does not:

• https://api.census.gov/data/2016/acs/acs1?get=DP02_0001E&for=zip%20code%20tabulation%20area:60601
• https://api.census.gov/data/2016/acs/acs1?get=group(DP02)&for=zip%20code%20tabulation%20area:60601
• https://api.census.gov/data/2016/acs/acs1?get=DP02_0001E&for=state:01

All return:

error: error: unknown variable 'DP02_0001E'

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I hit the same problem and I think I understand the solution thanks to this GitHub issue.

• URLS with the piece acs/acs1 will work for the DETAILED TABLES.
• You are looking to pull information from a DATA PROFILE, thus you must use URLs with the path acs/acs1/profile.
• If you were looking for a SUBJECT TABLE variable it would be acs/acs1/subject.

I believe the appropriate paths can generally constructed from the "dataset name" column in the table here. For example, the following should work:

https://api.census.gov/data/2016/acs/acs1/profile?get=DP02_0001E&for=state:01

NB: For geographic queries, you should also note that you need to use one of the available geographies and you may need to provide the high-level geography, e.g.:

https://api.census.gov/data/2016/acs/acs1/profile?get=DP02_0001E&for=county:031&in=state:17