A shapefile I retrieved from the Pennsylvania Redistricting site contains field names like TAPERSONS, TA1RACE. TAWHITEALN. TABLACKALN... or VAPERSONS, VA1RAC, VAWHITEALN...
Some online forensics suggest that these are some kind of ESRI-supplied field names. However, I can't find a data model or codebook that describe the field definitions. I'd rather not try to guess what they mean, though the names suggest demographic data.
Can someone point me to a place where I can find the definitions?
Your field names seem to be linked to CENSUS data (very similar to this file )
@Map_man answer will lead you to the source of your data, to be sure.
See here some metadata that seem to fit : https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/ba931cd7a8f341ed9486a41c6f6798d4/info/metadata/metadata.xml?format=default&output=html
Attribute Label: ID Attribute Definition: Unique identifying number for each record. Attribute Label: STFID Attribute Definition: Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code. State + County + Tract + Block number Attribute Label: BLKGRP Attribute Definition: Block group number. Attribute Label: TAPERSONS Attribute Definition: Total 2000 population for a block group. Attribute Label: TA1RACE Attribute Definition: Total number of people identifying themselves as being only one race. Attribute Label: TAWHITE Attribute Definition: Number of people identified as only White. Attribute Label: TABLACK Attribute Definition: Number of people identified as only Black. Attribute Label: TAAMERIND Attribute Definition: Number of people identified as only American Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut. Attribute Label: TAASIAN Attribute Definition: Number of people identified as only Asian. Attribute Label: TAHAWPAC Attribute Definition: Number of people identified as only Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. Attribute Label: TA1OTHER Attribute Definition: Number of people identified as belonging to a race other than white, black, American Indian, or Asian. Attribute Label: TA2MRACE Attribute Definition: Number of people identified as belonging to more than one race. Attribute Label: TA2RACES Attribute Definition: Number of people identified as belonging to two races. Attribute Label: TA3RACES Attribute Definition: Number of people identified as belonging to three races. Attribute Label: TA5RACES Attribute Definition: Number of people identified as belonging to five races. Attribute Label: TA6RACES Attribute Definition: Number of people identified as belonging to six races. Attribute Label: TNTOTAL Attribute Definition: Total 2000 population for a block group. Attribute Label: TNHISPANIC Attribute Definition: Number of people identifying themselves as Hispanic. Attribute Label: TNNONHISP Attribute Definition: Number of people identifying themselves as Non-Hispanic. Attribute Label: TN1RACE Attribute Definition: Number of Non-Hispanic people identified as belonging to one race. Attribute Label: TNWHITE Attribute Definition: Number of Non-Hispanic people identified as being White. Attribute Label: TNBLACK Attribute Definition: Number of non-hispanic people identified as being Black. Attribute Label: TNAMINAKN Attribute Definition: Number of non-hispanic people identified as being American Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut. Attribute Label: TNASIAN Attribute Definition: Number of Non-Hispanic people identified as being Asian. Attribute Label: TNHAWOP Attribute Definition: Number of non-hispanic people identified as being Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Attribute Label: TNOTHER Attribute Definition: Number of non-hispanic people identified as being White, Black, American Indian, or Asian. Attribute Label: TN2MRACE Attribute Definition: Number of Non-Hispanic people identified as belonging to 2 or more races. Attribute Label: TN2RACES Attribute Definition: Number of Non-Hispanic people identified as belonging to 2 races. Attribute Label: TN3RACES Attribute Definition: Number of Non-Hispanic people identified as belonging to 3 races. Attribute Label: TN4RACES Attribute Definition: Number of Non-Hispanic people identified as belonging to 4 races. Attribute Label: TN5RACES Attribute Definition: Number of Non-Hispanic people identified as belonging to 5 races. Attribute Label: TN6RACES Attribute Definition: Number of Non-Hispanic people identified as belonging to 6 races. Attribute Label: ALLAFAM Attribute Definition: Number of people identifying themselves as being of African American descent. Attribute Label: ALLAMIND Attribute Definition: Number of people identifying themselves as being of American Indian descent. Attribute Label: ALLASIAN Attribute Definition: Number of people identifying themselves as being of Non-Hispanic descent.
Esri provides guidelines on naming conventions, but not the content of the names themselves. For example, shapefiles have a cap of 10 characters, raster image filenames cap out at 13 characters, neither should have spaces....
Your answer likely won't come from an Esri site. You should dig into the dataset and contact the original owners for their metadata, for an exact answer. Usually documents like this come with a README.txt file.
Esri does have the Local Government Information Model (LGIM) that gives some recommendations for naming common objects. That might give a little guidance, but again--the dataset owner could have made their own internal rules.
