The Census Bureau works with tribal, state, county, and local officials, as well as coordinating agencies such as regional planning commissions to implement a number of programs designed to review geographic information.

The TIGER (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencng) system files are a digital database of geographic features, such as roads, railroads, rivers, lakes, legal boundaries, census statistical boundaries, etc. covering the entire United States. The data base contains information about these features such as their location in latitude and longitude, the name, the type of feature, address ranges for most streets, the geographic relationship to other features, and other related information. They are the public product created from the Census Bureau's TIGER database.

Note that these files are not graphic images of maps, but rather digital data describing geographic features. To make use of these data, you must have mapping or Geographic Information System (GIS) software that can import TIGER/Line data.

With the appropriate software, a user can produce maps ranging in detail from a neighborhood street map to a map of the United States. Many local governments have used the TIGER/Line data in applications requiring digital street maps. Also, the private sector has used TIGER/Line data to create products that produce maps for government, business and the general public.