The full upstream README, mirrored here for reference. Install config, tool schemas, adoption signals, and an original overview live on the Census listing page.
The official US Census Bureau data: decennial census, American Community Survey (ACS), economic census, population estimates, housing characteristics, geographic boundaries. National, state, county, place, tract, block-group, and ZCTA-level. Free, no key required for public datasets.
Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1476+ live data sources.
Demographics, housing characteristics, economic activity, geographic identifiers — Census is the authoritative source. If an agent is computing per-capita rates, comparing metros, looking up population, or working with FIPS codes, this is where it goes.
Common flows:
Pair with FRED for time-series macro and BLS for labor.
Most Census APIs are free and unauthenticated, with light rate limits (~500 calls/day per IP). For higher rates, get a key at https://api.census.gov/data/key_signup.html and pass via _apiKey.
| Dataset | Cadence | Geography |
|---|---|---|
| Decennial Census (PL, DHC) | 10-year | Block-level and up |
| ACS 5-year | Annually-rolling | Tract/BG (5-year smoothing) |
| ACS 1-year | Annually | Places ≥65k population |
| Population Estimates Program (PEP) | Annually | County-level |
| Economic Census | 5-year | Industry × geography |
ACS 5-year is what you usually want for current demographics — it's available at finer geographies than 1-year and updates yearly with rolling 5-year smoothing.
01) → County (01001) → Tract (01001020100) → Block Group. The 11-digit tract code is state(2) + county(3) + tract(6).Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):
tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/census/mcp returns the tools in the table
above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx,
discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the
gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a
single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the
pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and
is the authoritative answer for a given day.
This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a
scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via
ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a
second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without
them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth,
connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.
Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:
Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1476+ data sources. The
only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx
reaches all of them from either one.
Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:
The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.
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