Food Access Research Atlas

The Food Access Research Atlas:

  • Presents an overview of food access indicators for low-income and other census tracts using different measures of supermarket accessibility;
  • Provides food access data for populations within census tracts; and
  • Offers census-tract-level data on food access that can be downloaded for community planning or research purposes.

What can you do with the Atlas?

  • Create maps showing food access indicators by census tract using different measures and indicators of supermarket accessibility;
  • Compare food access measures based on 2019 data with the previous 2015 measures;
  • View indicators of food access for selected subpopulations; and
  • Download census-tract-level data on food access measures.

Data Training Webinar: ERS agricultural economist Alana Rhone provides an overview of the Food Access Research Atlas and Food Environment Atlas as well as a tutorial on how to find and use the data in this ERS Data Training Webinar.


The Food Access Research Atlas interactive guide provides an overview of the Food Access Research Atlas (FARA) to assist users in understanding its background information and its low-income and low-access measures.


Note: Information about data sources, updates, and revisions to the data and mapping application is at Documentation and Download the Data.

The Food Environment Atlas provides users with a wide set of statistics on food choices, health and well-being, and community characteristics for all communities in the United States.