ABSTRACT
The importance of spatial socio-economic units (SSEUs) for geographical analysis derives, to a great extent, from their potential to locate socio-economic data relating to individuals. This characteristic of SSEUs allows, among others, the study of spatial patterns, the temporal evolution of socio-economic phenomena and the overlay of different kinds of data. One of the main data sources for socio-economic applications is the decennial census of population and it was in this context that the first studies on georeferencing population-related data appeared. The US Census Bureau pioneered such studies from which GBF/DIME was the first result and, more recently, by creating TIGER-Line. Both systems use linear georeferencing, that is, the geo-referenced SSEUs are described by associating them to line entities whose geographical position is known.
