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Changelog / What's New

Version 2, May 2024 Update (Released 5/2/2024)

In May 2024 we released an update to IPUMS API Version 2 which added more data collections and features. This was a non-breaking update which maintains backwards compatibility with the original Version 2 release.

  • Please see upgrading to Version 2, May 2024 Update for information about how to upgrade API-consuming code to work with the new features of the May 2024 update.
  • New Data Collections
  • New Features
    • Sample members selection (ATUS)
    • “Include Eldercare” option (Time Use)
    • Rectangularizing extracts on record types other than Person
    • Users can include previously created system and user-defined time use variables in API data extract requests for the Time Use collections. The API does not yet support creation of time use variables, but can refer to variables that were created in the IPUMS Time Use webapp.
  • Bugfixes
    • Better error handling when attempting to include data quality flags for variables which do not have data quality flags.
    • Fixed the /metadata/nhgis/datasets/[dataset] endpoint to return all of the same data table attributes that are returned by the /metadata/nhgis/data_tables endpoint.
  • Miscellaneous
    • Allow metadata endpoint URLs to be constructed in the same manner as data extract URLs by including the collection as a parameter e.g. /metadata/data_tables?collection=nhgis. The existing /metadata/nhgis/data_tables form still works but may be deprecated in a future version of the API.
    • Documentation updates and fixes

Version 2 (Released 3/3/2023)

  • Please see upgrading to Version 2 for information about how to upgrade API-consuming code to work with Version 2.
  • [BREAKING CHANGE] The data extract request payload JSON member keys (field names) were changed from snake_case to camelCase to conform with JSON best practices.
  • [BREAKING CHANGE] Query parameters have changed from snake_case to camelCase to stay aligned with our JSON payload member key change.
  • [BREAKING CHANGE] The DataExtractResponse schema has changed. Most extract details are now encapsulated within a new top level JSON member key extractDefinition.
  • [NOTE] The version query parameter format switched from vVERSION to just VERSION starting with Version 2. Therefore, whereas Version 1 required version=v1 Version 2 requires version=2
  • New Data Collections
  • New Features
    • Case selection support for USA, CPS and IPUMS International
    • Attached characteristics support for USA, CPS, and IPUMS International
    • Data quality flag support USA and CPS
    • Hierarchical extracts support for USA, CPS, and IPUMS International
    • Support for year selection for time_series_table extracts for NHGIS
    • Support for paging API results
    • New /data_tables endpoint to list all data_tables across all datasets for NHGIS
    • data_tables response metadata now contains the universe and the count of variables for NHGIS
  • Bugfixes
    • NHGIS data extract request responses were not returning a status. Now returns ‘queued’ status.
    • NHGIS now returns breakdown values in the proper order and no longer returns breakdown values with no value.
    • NHGIS now returns dataset and time_series_table metadata in proper year-sorted order.
    • Microdata collections’ extracts listings no longer error if a non-existent sample or variable is encountered in a prior extract request
  • Miscellaneous

Version 1 (Released 3/3/2023)

  • We introduced a unified IPUMS API versioning strategy.
  • IPUMS API Version 1 includes all API functionality that was released prior to March 2023.
  • IPUMS USA and IPUMS CPS data extract functionality exited beta status and entered stable status.