Data scientists in diverse fields, from marketing to public health to civic hacking, need to work with demographic and socioeconomic data. Government census agencies offer richly detailed, high-quality datasets, but the number of variables and intricacies of administrative geographies (what is a Census tract anyway?) can make approaching this goldmine a daunting process. This course will introduce you to the Decennial Census and the annual American Community Survey, and show you where to find data on household income, commuting, race, family structure, and other topics that may interest you. You will use Python to request this data using the Census API for large and small geographies. You will manipulate the data using pandas, and create derived data such as a measure of segregation. You will also get a taste of the mapping capabilities of geopandas.