Statistics Canada
www.statcan.gc.ca
Common menu bar links
Technical specifications
- Software formats
- Installation instructions
- Geographic representation
- File naming conventions
- Record layout and item description
Software formats
The 2006 Census Agricultural Regions Boundary Files are available for download from the Statistics Canada website in the following formats:
- ArcInfo® shapefile format version 9.0
File extension: .shp - MapInfo® format version 8.0
File extension: .tab - Geography Markup Language (GML) version 2.1.2
File extension: .gml
Installation instructions
The ArcInfo®, MapInfo® and GML files are compressed into WinZip® files (file extension .zip).
An additional template (.tem) file is included with the GML files for use with the Java Unified Mapping Platform (JUMP) free GIS data viewer.
The geographic area names in the CAR boundary files contain accented characters. These characters can be seen in UNIX and Windows® versions of ArcInfo® and MapInfo®. They were tested on desktop versions of ArcGIS® 9.0 and MapInfo® 8.0 and 8.5.
Geographic representation
The 2006 Census Agricultural Regions Boundary Files are available for free on the Statistics Canada website in the following geographic representation:
- Datum:NAD83
- Coordinates:Latitude / Longitude
To ensure calculations are relevant (e.g., to calculate land area), it is recommended that the latitude/longitude coordinates be transformed to an appropriate map projection.
File naming conventions
The conventions used are:
- ArcInfo® shape filegcar000a07a_e.shp, gcar000b07a_e.shp
- MapInfo® TAB filegcar000a07m_e.tab, gcar000b07m_e.tab
- Geography Markup Language (GML) filegcar000a07g_e.gml, gcar000b07g_e.gml
where "g" refers to geographic representation, "car" indicates that it is the census agricultural regions file, "000" is the three digit code identifying it as a national file, "a" indicates it is a digital boundary file while "b" indicates it is a cartographic boundary file, "07" is the date stamp for the year of release, "m" or "a" or "g" indicates the software and "e" or "f" indicates the language of the file.
| empty cell | ARC/INFO® | MapInfo® | Geography Markup Language | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| File name | Compressed file size (MB) | File name | Compressed file size (MB) | File name | Compressed file size (MB) | |
| CAR digital boundary file | gcar000a07a_e | 7.63 | gcar000a07m_e | 4.46 | gcar000a07g_e | 10.03 |
| CAR cartographic boundary file | gcar000b07a_e | 24.0 | gcar000b07m_e | 13.44 | gcar000b07g_e | 31.23 |
Record layout and item description
Census Agricultural Regions record layout:
The following table shows the format of the attributes contained on the boundary files.
| Attribute name | Data type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| FID | Object ID (4) | Specific to ArcInfo® |
| Shape | Geometry | Specific to ArcInfo® |
| CARuid | char (4) | Uniquely identifies a census agricultural region (composed of the 2-digit province/territory code and the 2-digit census agricultural region code). |
| CARname | char (50) | The official census agricultural region name. |
| PRuid | char (2) | Uniquely identifies a province or territory. |
| AGuid | char (9) | Uniquely identifies any of the standard geographic areas disseminated by the Census of Agriculture (composed of the 2-digit province or territory code, the 2-digit census agricultural region code, the 2-digit census division code and the 3-digit census consolidated subdivision code). |
