area_lookup: Area Lookup Tables (QCEW)

In BLSloadR: Download Time Series Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Area Lookup Tables (QCEW)

Description

A data frame containing area codes, titles, and additional geographic information about valid areas for the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW).

This table is primarily used internally by 'BLSloadR' functions to add human-readable area titles or define valid area lookups.

Usage

data(area_lookup)

Format

A data frame with 4649 rows and 5 columns:

• area_fips - Character. The area FIPS code. When all numeric characters, it represents either a state or a county definition.

• area_title - Character. The descripion of the area code provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• area_type - Character. A desription ot the type of area defined. Values are National, State, County, County Unknown or Undefined, National Subgroup, Combined Statistical Area, Metropolitan Statistical Area, or Micropolitan Statistical Area.

• stfips - Character. For state or counties, the two-digit FIPS code of the associated state. For national areas, or those areas which may span multiple states the value is "00".

• specified_region - Either the two-character US Postal abbreviation for a state or group of states, or "No region" for other areas.

Details

Area codes are five characters long. When all numeric characters, this is a state-county FIPS, with statewide data using a "000" as the county FIPS. Other aggregations include various alphabetic characters to aid in the classification of different regions.

Source

https://www.bls.gov/cew/classifications/areas/qcew-area-titles.htm

Examples

# Load the lookup table
data(area_lookup)

# Find the area codes for all Statewide areas
state_codes <- area_lookup[area_lookup$area_type == "State", ]

# Get all Metropolitan Statistical Area codes including Arkansas.
ar_codes <- area_lookup |> 
dplyr::filter(grepl("AR", specified_region) &
 area_type == "Metropolitan Statistical Area")

BLSloadR documentation built on April 23, 2026, 9:07 a.m.