On March 16, 2011, the United States Bureau of the Census released population data to the State of Tennessee for the purposes of federal, state, and local legislative redistricting. In Knox County, the decennial release of these population counts allows Knoxville City Council, Knox County Commission, and the Knox County Board of Education to make a determination of their compliance with the principle of equal representation or “one person, one vote.” When a legislative body determines that they no longer meet this standard, they must reapportion their districts using the Census Bureau’s datasets.
Download Census Redistricting Datasets
Excel Users
A 2010 redistricting dataset for Knox County is provided in an Excel workbook, available for download (1.8 MB). The dataset includes population (total population, population by race, population by Hispanic origin, population 18 years and over) and housing units (total units, occupied units, vacant units). The workbook includes a worksheet of population and housing data for each geographic scale comprising Knox County: county, place, tract, block group, block, and voting district.
GIS Users
These 2010 Census redistricting map layers were created by merging the 2010 Census TIGER/Line shapefiles and the P.L. 94-171 Summary Files. Each map layer covers Knox County and contains several fields pertaining to population (tabulated by age, race, and Hispanic origin) as well as basic housing unit information (occupancy and vacancy counts).
Details about these map layers can be found at the links above and through the Census Bureau’s “Strength in Numbers” document (10 MB PDF file). Future releases of 2010 Census data will include more detailed information such as population by age ranges, household income, and housing characteristics. Click the links below to download the shapefiles compressed in ZIP format:
• Knox County
• Places
• Census County Divisions (Commission Districts)
• Voting Districts
• Tracts
• Block Groups
• Blocks
City Council Redistricting Files
Data used for the Knoxville City Council Redistricting efforts can be downloaded in both PDF and Excel formats to examine demographic characteristics at the precinct level including total population, racial makeup, ethnic background, housing unit counts, and vacancy.
City Council “Building Block” Data
Because City Council Districts split Knox County’s precincts or in some cases create small portions of precincts that are discontiguous from one another, a special set of redistricting data was created to tabulate the 2010 population within each district as redistricting plans are developed. These Council “building blocks” are a combination of precincts and City Council Districts and ease the redistricting process by allowing precinct-sized portions of population to be moved between districts to reestablish roughly equal population. This population data is available as a PDF file or can be downloaded in Excel format and a corresponding map of the building blocks is also available. On the map, each building block is labeled with a unique identifier that corresponds to a row in the population data table.
Download Council Redistricting Files
