# Participant Statistical Areas Program The **Participant Statistical Areas Program** is how the middle of census geography gets redrawn. Before each decennial count the Census Bureau invites outside participants — regional planning agencies, councils of government, tribal governments and state agencies — to review and redelineate the statistical areas that sit between the county and the block: census tracts, block groups, census designated places, and census county divisions in the states that use them. A parallel tribal track covers tribal census tracts, tribal block groups and several tribal statistical area types. These are the levels almost every neighbourhood statistic in the country is published for, and their sizes are fixed by criteria adopted in the *Federal Register* — a tract between 1,200 and 8,000 people, a block group between 600 and 3,000. The 2020 cycle ran in three phases from March 2018, with 120 calendar days to delineate from January 2019 and 90 to verify from January 2020. For the 2030 cycle the Bureau's program page says only that the next opportunity "is planned for the 2030 Census," and carries no dates. > [!note] Stub > This is a short entry that hasn't been fully written yet. ## See also - [[Census Geography Tree]] — the thresholds these areas are drawn to, and the gap in the 2030 calendar - [[Census Block]] · [[Block Boundary Suggestion Project]] · [[2030 Census]] - [[Census]] · [[Census Bureau]] · [[Census Data Products Tree]]