After clicking the on-line mapping tool on the previous page you will be taken to a screen which shows a map of the entire United States. You are going to want to specify a much smaller region to view. To do that click on SEARCH under AREA on the left column.

For our purposes, it will be most useful to view a specific borough. To do this click on Restrict Search to and click on New York. Now enter the name of the borough you want to view and press return. The page should then display the name of the borough you want with a small circle next to it. Click on that circle.

EXAMPLE: If you entered Brooklyn you should see the following

Brooklyn borough,Kings County,New York

Once you have clicked the little circle and a black dot appears, click on BOUNDARIES

You should see a check-list of different sorts of boundaries that the map will display. The boundaries default to (meaning they automatically are set at) Census Block Hierarchy under 1990 Decennial Census. Since we are only interested in seeing the census tracts, we need to clear each of the entries (in both columns) EXCEPT for County and Census Tract.

To clear the boxes next to an unnecessary entry simply click on them and the checks should go away.

Now click on FEATURES.

In order to make browsing the map as easy as possible, click under Feature next to Stream, Waterbody to select water bodies and also click under Feature and Label next to National Park and Other Park to make sure all parks are visible and labeled.

Now you are ready to view the map, click VIEW

The map that appears is going to be too far zoomed out to be of much use. By clicking on the map you will zoom in. The new map's center will be wherever it was that you clicked. You can zoom in and out using the scale on the left-hand side, and navigate around the map using the little blue triangles.

Find a level of zoom that allows you to read the levels of the census tracts, as well as visibility of the street names. If you have any problems or questions click on FEEDBACK and report your problem to the American Fact Finder staff. If you give them your email address they will usually respond the same day.