Traditional measures of segregation rely on where people live, but daily life extends far beyond the home. This map visualizes the National Experienced Racial-Ethnic Diversity (NERD) dataset, which uses anonymized mobile phone location data to measure the diversity people actually encounter throughout their day — at work, during errands, and in leisure activities.
Explore how experienced diversity varies across U.S. metropolitan areas by race, time of day, and day of week. Select a city and metric to compare experienced diversity with traditional residential measures at the census tract level.
The National Experienced Racial-Ethnic Diversity (NERD) dataset provides estimates of experienced diversity for the entire United States at the census tract level. Using anonymized mobile phone location data from over 66 million opted-in devices, the dataset measures the diversity people actually encounter throughout their day — not just where they live.
Diversity in potential social interactions is estimated at 38.2 m × 19.1 m spatial resolution and 15-minute temporal resolution for a representative year, then aggregated to the census tract level for data privacy. The dataset includes experienced diversity broken down by race/ethnicity (White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Other), time of day (morning, afternoon, evening, late evening, late night), and day of week (weekday vs. weekend), along with census demographic characteristics.
This dataset is made available under a custom license. Copyright 2023 Wenfei Xu. Please cite the associated publication when using this data.
Xu, W., Wang, Z., Attia, N., Attia, Y., Zhang, Y., & Zong, H. (2024). An experienced racial-ethnic diversity dataset in the United States using human mobility data. Scientific Data, 11, 638. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03490-y
| Column | Description |
| STATEFP10 | 2010 Census state FIPS code |
| COUNTYFP10 | 2010 Census county FIPS code |
| TRACTCE10 | 2010 Census census tract code |
| GEOID10 | Census tract identifier (state FIPS + county FIPS + tract code) |
| STATE | State Name |
| COUNTY | County Name |
| CBSA Title | Core Based Statistical Area name |
| total_pop | Total Population (2020 Census) |
| white_perc | % Non-Hispanic White Alone (2020) |
| black_perc | % Non-Hispanic Black Alone (2020) |
| indigenous_perc | % Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native Alone (2020) |
| asian_perc | % Non-Hispanic Asian Alone (2020) |
| pac_isl_perc | % Non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Alone (2020) |
| other_perc | % Non-Hispanic Some Other Race Alone (2020) |
| two_more_perc | % Non-Hispanic Two or More Races (2020) |
| hispanic_perc | % Hispanic (2020) |
| ba_higher_perc | % Bachelor's Degree or Higher (2020) |
| median_inc | Median household income (2021 inflation-adjusted dollars) |
| white_exp_exposure | White Experienced Diversity (2022) |
| black_exp_diversity | Black Experienced Diversity (2022) |
| asian_exp_diversity | Asian Experienced Diversity (2022) |
| hispanic_exp_diversity | Hispanic Experienced Diversity (2022) |
| other_exp_diversity | Other Race Experienced Diversity (2022) |
| total_exp_diversity | Total Experienced Diversity (2022) |
| residential_diversity | Residential Diversity (2020 Census) |
| diff | Difference between Total Experienced and Residential Diversity |
Click a state to download its GeoJSON file from the OSF repository.