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The US census documentation for state codes is missing several numbers. For example, there is no state with code "03", "07" and others.

Here is the start of the list...

STATE|STUSAB|STATE_NAME|STATENS
01|AL|Alabama|01779775
02|AK|Alaska|01785533
04|AZ|Arizona|01779777
05|AR|Arkansas|00068085
06|CA|California|01779778
08|CO|Colorado|01779779
09|CT|Connecticut|01779780
10|DE|Delaware|01779781
...

What exactly happened here? It's not as though there are constantly new states joining and old states leaving. This list should be pretty stable and predictable.

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These are Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) state codes, and the ones you mention are missing because, from the wiki:

"certain numeric codes "are reserved for possible future use in identifying American Samoa (03), Canal Zone (07), Guam (14), Puerto Rico (43), and Virgin Islands (52)", but these codes were omitted from FIPS PUB 5-2 without comment."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Information_Processing_Standard_state_code

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  • 2
    Very interesting. I wonder why Samoa would get "03" – CodyBugstein Dec 25 '19 at 3:22
  • 6
    Because "Am" comes after "Al" and before "Ar" – Vince Dec 25 '19 at 5:07
  • @Vince but in the current list, American Samoa is #60 – CodyBugstein Dec 26 '19 at 2:54
  • Just because they reserve it doesn't mean they have to use it. The 03 was reserved by alpha-sorting on the name "American Samoa" – Vince Dec 26 '19 at 3:53

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