New Boundaries for the Districts API

The new political maps are here, just in time for this year's city elections.

After each 10-year census, state and local lawmakers (or appointed commissions) gather to draw new boundaries for political districts, with an eye towards shifting populations and geographic continuity. That means that many members of the U.S. House of Representatives, for example, ran last year in districts that were either slightly or greatly altered. For the members of the House who represent New York City, their new districts are included in the Districts API. The same process occurred for the New York State Senate and State Assembly.

It took a bit longer, but the redistricting process for the New York City Council is near completion. A districting commission drafted several plans for the 51 city council districts, and last month, the commission's latest plan received “pre-clearance” from the Department of Justice. As a result, we've added those city council district boundaries to the Districts API as well.

This means that API responses will include political boundaries that represent the latest maps used by the city (although that site does not include the updated city council maps as of this writing). The API responses don't include the previous boundaries, just the most recent ones, and we're now offering the Districts API in JSONP, with the familiar &callback=SomeCallback addition to the URL.

The combination of newly drawn districts and term limits for city council members has attracted wide open races in a number of districts, and we hope that developers will find ways to use the API in developing applications that help voters understand their political geography better.