A newer version of this project is available. See below for other available versions.

Food Environment Atlas - Data Access and Documentation Downloads

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) United States Department of Agriculture. Economic Research Service

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
  Archived Versions - 2011 Version 02/28/2026 02:11:PM
  Archived Versions - August 2015 Version 02/28/2026 02:11:PM
  Archived Versions - August 2020 Version 02/28/2026 02:11:PM
  Archived Versions - February 2014 Version 02/28/2026 02:11:PM
  Archived Versions - June 2012 Version 02/28/2026 02:11:PM
  Archived Versions - November 2012 Version 02/28/2026 02:11:PM
  Archived Versions - September 2017 Version 02/28/2026 02:11:PM
  Current Version 02/28/2026 02:11:PM
Food Environment Atlas - Webpage layout.pdf application/pdf 708.5 KB 02/28/2026 09:11:AM

Project Description

Project Title:  View help for Project Title Food Environment Atlas - Data Access and Documentation Downloads
Summary:  View help for Summary Food environment factors—such as store and restaurant proximity, availability of local foods, food and nutrition assistance programs, and community characteristics—interact to influence food choices and diet quality. The objectives of the Food Environment Atlas are:
  • to provide a spatial overview of a community's ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so, and
  • to assemble statistics on food environment indicators to stimulate research on the determinants of food choices and diet quality.
The Atlas can be used to:
  • Create maps showing the variation in a single indicator across the United States; for example, number of farmers' markets or access to grocery stores across U.S. counties and county-equivalents;
  • View all of the county-level indicators for a selected county or county equivalent;
  • Zoom in to specific areas and export or print maps;
  • Download the full dataset or selected data in Excel and machine-readable formats.
The current version of the Food Environment Atlas has more than 300 variables, including new indicators on all other general merchandise stores (including dollar stores) and deep poverty rates. All of the data included in the Atlas are aggregated into an Excel spreadsheet as well as a machine-readable CSV format for easy download. These data come from a variety of sources and cover varying years and geographic levels. Previous versions of the Food Environment Atlas are archived and available for download. The documentation for each version of the data provides complete information on definitions and data sources. In the downloadable Excel/CSV spreadsheets:
  • State and county Federal information processing standards (FIPS) codes are provided. FIPS and GEOID are used interchangeably in the online mapping tool and data download and they represent the same value.
  • The variable lookup file links the short field descriptions (indicator names) used in the data file with the longer indicator names used in the Atlas.
  • "No data" fields are referenced with N/A or with -9999. Counties that didn’t exist in a particular year are referenced with -8888.
The current version of the Food Environment Atlas data, along with seven previous versions of the data and documentation, are available.
Original Distribution URL:  View help for Original Distribution URL https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-environment-atlas/data-access-and-documentation-downloads

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms food security; community health; public assistance programs; food programs; geographic distribution
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) administrative records data
Collection Notes:  View help for Collection Notes Downloaded 2026-02-24


Related Publications

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Published Versions

V3 [2026-03-12]

V2 [2026-03-03]

V1 [2026-02-28]

Export Metadata

Dublin Core

DDI 2.5

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