Editing FIPS county code (section)

{{short description|Five-digit standard code for counties in the US}}
The '''Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 6-4''' (FIPS 6-4) is a five-digit [[Federal Information Processing Standards]] code which uniquely identified [[County (United States)|counties]] and county equivalents in the United States, certain U.S. possessions, and certain freely associated states.<ref name="Bureau 2021 j078">{{cite web |date=October 26, 2021 |title=2020 Population Estimates FIPS Codes |url=https://www.census.gov/geographies/reference-files/2020/demo/popest/2020-fips.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530172532/https://www.census.gov/geographies/reference-files/2020/demo/popest/2020-fips.html |archive-date=May 30, 2023 |access-date=November 20, 2023 |publisher=United States Census Bureau}}</ref>

On September 2, 2008, the [[US Department of Commerce]], following three years of review and comments from "public, research communities, manufacturers, voluntary standards organizations, and Federal, State, and local government organizations", announced that FIPS 6-4 was one of ten FIPS standards withdrawn by the department's [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]] (NIST).<ref name=Withdrawan>{{cite journal |url=https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-09-02/pdf/E8-20306.pdf |title=Announcing Approval of the Withdrawal of Ten Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) |first=James M. |last=Turner |work=[[National Institute of Standards and Technology|NIST]] |publisher=[[Federal Register]] |volume=73 |page=51276 |date=2008-09-02 |access-date=2017-11-02 |archive-date=2018-08-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180819072459/https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-09-02/pdf/E8-20306.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Deemed "obsolete, or have not been updated to adopt current voluntary industry standards, federal specifications, federal data standards, or current good practices for information security",<ref name=Withdrawan/> the NIST replaced FIPS 6-4 with "[[INCITS]] 31 – 2009" codes for the "Identification of the States and Equivalent Areas within the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Insular Areas".<ref name="replacement_chart">{{cite web |url=https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/itl/FIPSCodesReplacementChart2012.pdf |title=FIPS Code Replacement Chart 2012 |publisher=[[National Institute of Standards and Technology]] |date=2012-06-28 |access-date=2017-11-02 |archive-date=2019-06-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190619215913/https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/itl/FIPSCodesReplacementChart2012.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The five-digit codes of FIPS 6-4 used the two digit [[FIPS state code]] (FIPS Publication 5-2, also withdrawn on September 2, 2008), followed by the three digits of the county code within the state or possession. County FIPS codes in the United States are usually (with a few exceptions) in the same sequence as alphabetized county names within a state. They are usually (but not always) odd numbers, so that new or changed county names can be fit in their alphabetical sequence slot.

In response to the NIST decision, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that it would replace the FIPS 6-4 codes with the INCITS 31 codes after the [[2010 United States census|2010 census]], with the Census bureau assigning new codes as needed for their internal use during the transition. The Census Bureau decided that, based on decades of using the terminology FIPS to describe its codes, it would continue to use the FIPS name for its updated codes, where FIPS now stood for FIP "Series", since there no longer existed an official FIP "Standard".<ref name=transition>{{cite web |url=http://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/data/tiger/tgrshp2009/TGRSHP09C3.pdf |title=Section 3.3 – Codes for Entities |work=2009 TIGER/Line Shapefiles Technical Documentation |publisher=United States Census Bureau |year=2009 |format=[[portable document format|PDF]] |access-date=2010-08-03 |archive-date=2020-08-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805174234/https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/data/tiger/tgrshp2009/TGRSHP09C3.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

FIPS county codes are still used by the [[Emergency Alert System]] (EAS) and [[NOAA Weather Radio]] (NWR) to define geographic locations for their [[Specific Area Message Encoding|SAME]]-based public alerting systems.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/info/nwrsame.html |title=NOAA Weather Radio – SAME |first=Mark S. |last=Paese |publisher=[[National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]] |date=2011-10-03 |access-date=2017-11-02 |archive-date=2019-05-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190516134751/https://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/info/nwrsame.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In this application, a "0" (zero) is added as the first digit and used as a [[Wildcard character|"placeholder"]], making each FIPS code a six-digit sequence. In the future, the first digit may be utilized in this numerical scheme to represent a predefined county subdivision.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/info/samenz.html |title=Notes on Non-Zero Number in First Digit of 6-Digit SAME Number |publisher=[[National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]] |access-date=2017-11-02 |archive-date=2019-03-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190306113055/https://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/info/samenz.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>