Remember a couple of years ago when the Census Bureau people came canvasing through your neighborhood, knocking on your doors to collect your demographic information? I do, because they kept coming back to my apartment even after they initially visited me and I had to keep telling them that, despite my shocking magnitude, I can only accurately represent one single person in one single household.

Aside from merely representing the general population characteristics of the United States, the demographic information can be a immensely useful for anyone doing research or possibly even as a marketing strategy. To make it easier for others to utilize this mountain of information, the Google Maps API team have developed a Demographics layer that visualizes the data gathered during the 2010 census onto the regular map. As you would expect, the layer presents population information regarding age, race, marital status, income, and all of the other relevant data from the census. Via its Enterprise Blog, Google put together a demonstration of the Demographics Layer in the video below.

In addition to census data relevant to 2010 and 2011, the API also features the projected data for 2015 and 2016. The visualizations can be manipulated on a scale ranging from state-by-state analysis to as micro-focused as a selection of city blocks and developers will be able to toggle how the different demographics are color-coded.

A similar demographics layer has been available in Google Earth Pro but this is the first release of the API for Maps. The Demographics layer comes as part of the general Google Maps API for Business package so developers won’t have to purchases a separate license to get their hands on this new tool.