One of the major challenges in conducting any census, is making sure everyone is counted. When the population is not accurately counted, people in these communities are deprived of political representation and vital public resources. Individuals in these groups are defined as “hard to count:”

• Young Children
• Highly mobile
• Racial and ethnic minorities
• Non-English speakers
• Low-income residents
• Homeless
• Undocumented immigrants
• People who distrust the government
• LGBTQ
• People with mental or physical disabilities
• People who live in nontraditional housing

Shown below, the Prince George’s County Planning Department has developed a customized data subset of hard-to-count areas with predicted low response rates within Prince George’s County.

Click map to enlarge

View a customized, interactive map of these areas. You can zoom to a specific census tract on the map to view socioeconomic and demographic characteristic profiles such as Total Population, Median Household Income, and Population under Age 5.

To learn more about hard-to-count areas in the United States, see the U.S. Census Bureau’s  Response Outreach Area Mapper (ROAM) application.  ROAM is a web mapping application that shows low response scores by census tract for the country.