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Is their a way (other than manual) to convert a large data set with county names to their respective FIPS code?

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what software do you have at your disposal? – Brad Nesom Mar 18 at 16:47
I have access to the ArcGIS suite and Microsoft Excel – H.B. Mar 18 at 20:19
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Because county names are unique within state, why not instead join a table of FIPS codes (for the appropriate Census year) to your original dataset on the state/county name fields? – whuber♦ Mar 19 at 5:28
Easy! You have a sorted named range with county;state names in column one, FIPS codes in column two, and do a VLOOKUP(RC[-1]&";"&RC[-2], fips_range, 2, TRUE) all through the Excel column. (Assuming county is the first one to the left, and state is the second to the left). – Deer Hunter Mar 20 at 7:22

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Export your table as a MDB and import to Excel.

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This doesn't explain how to convert the names to codes – GeoKevin Mar 18 at 18:48
See whubers comment above – lewis Mar 19 at 13:19

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