An atlas of the physical economy

Data

Sources, actual vintages, units and coverage for the quantities on the map.

The atlas combines freight estimates, reported cargo and trade, production statistics and geographic context. The 2025 edition is not a common measurement year: each source keeps its actual year. The national freight headline uses FAF5.7.1 preliminary 2024 estimates, aggregated from tons_2024 and current_value_2024; it is not a 2025 total. The map shows the contiguous United States, while the headline retains the national source scope, including Alaska and Hawaii. Dollars are nominal source-year values, not inflation-adjusted to a common year. See measurement conventions.

FAF regional freight

What it measures
Annual goods movement by domestic origin, destination, mode, commodity and domestic/import/export trade type.
Unit
Thousands of short tons and millions of current USD in source columns; converted to short tons and USD.
Geographic grain
FAF domestic origin–destination regions, including metro parts and rest-of-state regions.
Actual vintage used
FAF5.7.1; preliminary 2024 columns, not projected 2025 freight.
Source fields
dms_orig, dms_dest, dms_mode, trade_type, sctg2, tons_2024, current_value_2024.
Atlas use
Regional originating, within-region and outside-shipped totals; national accounting; demand for network assignment and commodity value rates.
Coverage gaps
FAF is an estimate. Foreign trade describes U.S. freight legs. Card inbound/partner detail retains truck, rail, water and pipeline only; the eight-mode source reconstruction is not additional served detail.
Publisher / public source
FHWA / BTS · Freight Analysis Framework ↗; FAF5.7.1 retained release download ↗

Calculation: Freight regions & metros · Roads · Rail · Waterways · Pipelines · National statistics

Highway and rail networks

What it measures
Physical network geometry and link attributes used to assign FAF demand. These are not traffic counts.
Unit
Link length in miles; atlas-assigned annual short tons and USD.
Geographic grain
FHWA FAF5 highway edges and BTS NTAD North American Rail Network main-line edges.
Actual vintage used
Retained geometry snapshots; their publication/update dates are unverified. Freight demand is 2024; retained assignment is v3.1.
Source fields
Highways: LENGTH and highway class. Rail: NET, FRFRANODE, TOFRANODE, MILES.
Atlas use
Construct two-way graphs, connect county-cluster points, assign least-cost paths and accumulate quantities on each traversed edge.
Coverage gaps
Intrazonal freight is not routed. Alaska/Hawaii have no lower-48 assignment. Rail interchange, operator schedules and dispatch constraints are not modeled. Geometry is not evidence of observed link throughput.
Publisher / public source
FHWA / BTS · FAF network resources ↗; BTS · National Transportation Atlas Database ↗

Calculation: Roads · Rail

County GDP routing weights

What it measures
County GDP by industry, used as a spatial weighting variable.
Unit
Thousands of current USD; normalized shares for routing, not shipment dollars.
Geographic grain
County and BEA county/city combinations; state totals for suppressed-weight imputation.
Actual vintage used
BEA CAGDP2, 2024.
Source fields
LineCode 91 private goods-producing industries, 34 wholesale trade and 1 all-industry GDP; year column 2024.
Atlas use
Split FAF demand among county clusters. Origins use lines 91 + 34; destinations use line 1. Suppressed weights receive the undisclosed state remainder in proportion to all-industry GDP.
Coverage gaps
GDP is value added, not freight value. Imputation and county-point assignment affect spatial allocation, not source regional totals.
Publisher / public source
BEA · CAGDP2 public download ↗

Calculation: Roads · Rail

LPMS lock scaling

What it measures
Annual commodity tonnage through locks that report both comparison years.
Unit
Short tons of lock passages; dimensionless 2025/2023 scaling ratios.
Geographic grain
Lock, river system and commodity class.
Actual vintage used
USACE LPMS annual commodity reports for 2023 and 2025.
Source fields
Paired-year annual class totals; river-system/class accumulations.
Atlas use
Estimate change from the 2023 waterway base. Use a river/class factor with at least 500,000 baseline tons and positive 2025 tons; otherwise use the national class fallback.
Coverage gaps
The same cargo may pass several locks. Lock ratios proxy change on links; they are not 2025 link meters. Missing year pairs are excluded.
Publisher / public source
USACE · LPMS annual commodity report ↗

Calculation: Waterways

EIA pipeline geometry

What it measures
Crude, petroleum-product, HGL and natural-gas pipeline line geometry.
Unit
Geographic coordinates and line attributes; no measured flow unit.
Geographic grain
Individual line features from four EIA layers mirrored by NETL.
Actual vintage used
Retained files record retrieval on 2026-10-07. Source geometry publication/update vintages are unverified.
Source fields
NETL service layers 2 crude, 1 products, 0 HGL and 3 gas.
Atlas use
Build connected graphs, assign calibrated FAF demand in increments and retain local modeled throughput.
Coverage gaps
Line presence does not establish usable capacity or dispatch. Gas and HGL share an inherited demand graph; their flows cannot be separated reliably. Undrawn connectors and inaccessible demand affect coverage.
Publisher / public source
EIA / NETL · retained pipeline feature service ↗

Calculation: Pipelines

EIA pipeline calibration controls

What it measures
Monthly cross-PADD petroleum pipeline receipts, crude field production and marketed natural-gas production.
Unit
Receipts/crude series: thousand barrels; marketed gas series: million cubic feet. Atlas growth ratios and petroleum mass proxies calibrate FAF short tons.
Geographic grain
Directed PADD pairs and national totals.
Actual vintage used
Monthly calendar years 2024 and 2025 summed to annual controls. Exact release and acquisition dates are unverified.
Source fields
PET.MCRMPP{dest}P{origin}1.M, PET.MTTMPP{dest}P{origin}1.M, PET.MCRFPUS1.M, NG.N9050US2.M.
Atlas use
Scale cross-PADD crude/products demand and apply national growth elsewhere; clip factors to [0.5, 2]. Petroleum controls use assumed 0.1504 short tons/barrel crude and 0.1396 products.
Coverage gaps
FAF and EIA cover different universes. Missing/zero pair controls use national growth. Clipping prevents exact matching. Gas growth is not a production-card mass conversion.
Publisher / public source
EIA · pipeline movements ↗

Calculation: Pipelines

BTS T-100 airport cargo

What it measures
Freight and mail on domestic and international nonstop air-carrier segments.
Unit
Source pounds; (FREIGHT + MAIL) / 2,000 gives short tons.
Geographic grain
Airport pair and segment direction; international endpoints include country codes.
Actual vintage used
All twelve months of 2025; retained metadata records fetch date 2026-10-07.
Source fields
ORIGIN, DEST, FREIGHT, MAIL, YEAR, MONTH; ORIGIN_COUNTRY and DEST_COUNTRY internationally.
Atlas use
Aggregate airport domestic out/in and international in/out. Use international directional tons to allocate Census customs air values.
Coverage gaps
Handling counts domestic cargo at both airports. The map retains 30 selected airports, not all airports. Domestic dollar values are unavailable; international airport dollars are allocations, not T-100 observations.
Publisher / public source
BTS · T-100 Domestic Segment ↗; BTS · T-100 International Segment ↗

Calculation: Air cargo airports · National statistics

Census customs-port trade

What it measures
International vessel and air shipping weights and customs values by reporting port, country and commodity.
Unit
Shipping weight in kg, converted by / 907.18474 to short tons; nominal current USD.
Geographic grain
Customs reporting port/district × country × HS2 commodity and direction.
Actual vintage used
December 2025 year-to-date annual values; retained normalized files identify year 2025.
Source fields
VES_WGT_YR, VES_VAL_YR, AIR_VAL_YR; PORT, CTY_CODE, HS2.
Atlas use
Vessel gateway markers and country/commodity detail; international air-dollar allocation; national import/export values and vessel+air weights.
Coverage gaps
Reporting ports can cover multiple facilities or courier operations. Vessel markers exclude domestic coastal/inland cargo. Unallocated air trade stays off airport markers. Retained national weight coverage excludes unpublished land-mode weights; annual YTD values are not summed across months.
Publisher / public source
Census Bureau · imports porths ↗; Census Bureau · exports porths ↗

Calculation: International vessel trade · Air cargo airports · National statistics

USGS nonfuel minerals

What it measures
Preliminary value of nonfuel mineral production by state.
Unit
Published millions of USD, converted by × 1,000,000.
Geographic grain
Whole state, even when displayed near a named mineral area.
Actual vintage used
Preliminary 2025 values in Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, Table 3.
Source fields
State production value and principal commodities.
Atlas use
Display unchanged state totals with selected mineral-producing context.
Coverage gaps
No gold-only, copper-only, iron-only or county allocation is established. Local value and local tons remain unknown. Fuel minerals are excluded; some national value is not assigned to states.
Publisher / public source
USGS · Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 ↗

Calculation: Nonfuel minerals

USDA / NASS farm sales and crops

What it measures
Market value of agricultural products sold and county corn/soy production.
Unit
Farm sales in USD; crop production in native bushels. Corn uses 56 lb/bushel / 2,000 for a conventional short-ton estimate.
Geographic grain
County observations aggregated over named county sets or assigned to FAF regions by interior point.
Actual vintage used
Farm sales: 2022 Census of Agriculture. Crop survey: retained annual 2025. Neither sales nor factory values are inflated to 2025.
Source fields
COMMODITY TOTALS – SALES, MEASURED IN $; annual corn/soy production rows.
Atlas use
Farm-region and FAF-region context; Corn Belt membership selects counties with at least 25 million corn bushels in 2025. Its dollar value uses those counties’ 2022 all-farm sales.
Coverage gaps
Suppressed sales remain null and disclosed sums can be incomplete. County outlines are not cultivated acreage. The corn factor does not apply to soybeans, all agriculture or native energy volumes.
Publisher / public source
USDA NASS · 2022 Census bulk data ↗; USDA NASS · Quick Stats ↗

Calculation: Farms & crop regions

CDFA county agricultural values

What it measures
County commissioner gross value of agricultural production excluding timber.
Unit
Published thousands of USD, converted by × 1,000.
Geographic grain
California counties; the Central Valley uses 17 retained counties.
Actual vintage used
2023 values in the 2023–2024 California Agricultural Statistics Review; six counties in the statewide extraction carry 2022 values forward.
Source fields
County Rank by Gross Value of Agricultural Production, 2022–2023, page 22; retained value_2023_usd and row-year flags.
Atlas use
Central Valley production value, separate from NASS products-sold values.
Coverage gaps
Gross production and products sold are different measures. Row years govern carried-forward values. Trinity and San Francisco are absent from the published county compilation.
Publisher / public source
CDFA · California Agricultural Statistics Review ↗

Calculation: Farms & crop regions

Census manufacturing shipments

What it measures
Value of shipments for all manufacturing and disclosed subsectors.
Unit
RCPTOT in thousands of current USD, converted by × 1,000.
Geographic grain
County × NAICS industry; selected county/subsector memberships and FAF county-point assignments.
Actual vintage used
2022 Economic Census Core Business Statistics (ecnbasic). This is not a County Business Patterns shipment-value measure; no CBP input was identified in the retained value producers or registry.
Source fields
RCPTOT, RCPTOT_F, NAICS2022; 31–33 totals and disclosed subsectors.
Atlas use
Aggregate named industrial areas and regional manufacturing context. Silicon Valley uses all manufacturing for all five member counties.
Coverage gaps
Withheld values and absent county records make sums incomplete. Top subsectors are the top disclosed ones. Broad chemical NAICS 325 is not pharmaceutical-only 3254; county pharma shipment values are unavailable.
Publisher / public source
Census Bureau · 2022 Economic Census API ↗

Calculation: Factories & industrial areas

EIA producing regions and output

What it measures
Annual oil and gas output for producing regions, plus state/offshore source volumes.
Unit
STEO million barrels/day and billion cubic feet/day; state annual thousand barrels and million cubic feet.
Geographic grain
Permian, Bakken, Eagle Ford, Appalachia and Haynesville producing regions; other state/offshore records.
Actual vintage used
Retained annual 2025 entries. The STEO release date and acquisition lineage are unverified.
Source fields
COPRPM/BK/EF/AP/HA and NGMPPM/BK/EF/AP/HA; PET.MCRFP and NG.N9050 state series.
Atlas use
Native output and benchmark-priced production estimates, with EIA play/basin outline context.
Coverage gaps
STEO figures are estimates. Outlines need not match the statistical producing regions. Parent, child, state and offshore values overlap. No native output-to-short-ton conversion is supplied.
Publisher / public source
EIA · STEO data browser ↗; EIA · STEO bulk file ↗

Calculation: Oil & gas producing regions

EIA benchmark prices and heat content

What it measures
Annual crude first-purchase prices, Henry Hub gas price, gas heat content and coal sales prices.
Unit
USD/barrel; USD/MMBtu; Btu/cubic foot; USD/short ton for coal.
Geographic grain
State/PADD crude prices, national gas benchmark and consumed-gas heat content; state/rank coal prices.
Actual vintage used
Crude, gas and heat content: 2025. Coal prices: 2024 Annual Coal Report, Tables 28/31.
Source fields
First-purchase price rows; RNGWHHD annual 2025 = 3.52 USD/MMBtu; consumed-gas heat content = 1,036 Btu/ft³; coal state/rank price.
Atlas use
Multiply native output by benchmark prices. Withheld crude prices use a PADD fallback; coal uses state or rank fallback.
Coverage gaps
Benchmark estimates are not observed basin sales or wellhead revenue. Gas heat content describes consumed gas, not basin composition. The coal calculation combines 2025 volume with a 2024 price.
Publisher / public source
EIA · crude first-purchase prices ↗; EIA · Henry Hub annual price ↗; EIA · consumed gas heat content ↗; EIA · Annual Coal Report ↗

Calculation: Oil & gas producing regions · Coal regions & mines

MSHA mine production

What it measures
Operator-reported coal output by mine, summed across quarters.
Unit
Short tons.
Geographic grain
Mine sites and a whole-Wyoming total used as the Powder River Basin parent proxy.
Actual vintage used
Four quarters of 2025.
Source fields
MinesProdQuarterly operator coal tons; mine IDs and registry locations.
Atlas use
Retain the 40 highest-output sites meeting the 3-million-ton screen; estimate the parent value with EIA 2024 Wyoming price.
Coverage gaps
Contractor counts are not added. Site values overlap the parent. Individual mine dollars are unavailable; Wyoming is not an independently delimited PRB total.
Publisher / public source
MSHA · Open Government Data ↗

Calculation: Coal regions & mines

Census boundaries and internal points

What it measures
Cartographic county/state boundaries and county internal points, not economic quantities.
Unit
Coordinates; 1:20,000,000 cartographic geometry for retained county/state layers.
Geographic grain
County and state; unions of source counties for selected production outlines.
Actual vintage used
Census 2024 cartographic boundaries and 2024 county Gazetteer. FAF region boundaries remain a separate freight geography.
Source fields
GEOID, NAME, STUSPS; Gazetteer INTPTLONG and INTPTLAT.
Atlas use
Locate county routing points, assign county values to FAF regions, make production-context unions and supply geographic land/state context.
Coverage gaps
Generalized geometry is not a parcel, mine, crop or survey boundary. An outline does not localize a statewide production value. County-point assignment is not fractional clipping.
Publisher / public source
Census Bureau · 2024 county cartographic download ↗

Calculation: Roads · Rail · Farms & crop regions · Factories & industrial areas · Nonfuel minerals

Reproducibility

The data pipeline has five stages. This is a calculation workflow, not a physical shipment route.

  1. AcquireRetain public releases and extracts, with available metadata.
  2. ValidateCheck units, years, geography and disclosure flags.
  3. Route / assignModel network paths or allocate source totals where local detail is absent.
  4. AggregateProduce regional totals, link quantities and selected production records.
  5. RenderSelect geometry and labels for the view; keep source quantities unchanged.

The retained-source audit reproduced the following results. These checks establish arithmetic consistency, not measurement accuracy or independent route validation.

Worked examples cover Houston freight, Memphis handling, Permian valuation, Mississippi lock scaling and the Wyoming coal proxy. See arithmetic reconciliations and limitations.

Provenance still incomplete: the original waterway tonnage rows were not recovered for a full raw-link replay; the STEO extract lacks a recoverable release date. Unrecorded geometry vintages and acquisition dates are not inferred from filenames. Public source links may now offer a revised release rather than the retained snapshot.