Error: "unknown/unsupported geography hierarchy" when using state_county_blockgroup function

[praful-dodda]

census/census/core.py

Line 352 in e3df949

def state_county_blockgroup(self, fields, state_fips, county_fips,

Description

I'm encountering an error when trying to fetch block group level demographics data using the state_county_blockgroup function. The API returns "unknown/unsupported geography hierarchy" when I make calls with certain tract and block group codes.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Set up Census client with a valid API key
2. Attempt to fetch block group level data using code similar to:

from census import Census

# Initialize client
census = Census(api_key, year=2011)

# Error occurs when trying to fetch data for:
# state_fips=48, county_fips=339, blockgroup=1, tract=694201
data = census.acs5.state_county_blockgroup(
    fields=['B01001_001E'],  # Population estimate
    state_fips='48',
    county_fips='339',
    blockgroup='1',
    tract='694201'
)

Error Message

Error fetching data for GEOID 483396942011: error: unknown/unsupported geography hierarchy

What I've Tried

• Ensured all FIPS codes are properly formatted as strings
• Verified that the tract and block group values match the expected format

Possible Issues

I suspect the issue might be related to:

1. The tract code format (694201) - possibly needs leading zeros?
2. The year 2011 possibly having different geography hierarchy requirements
3. The combination of these specific geography codes may not exist or may require a different format

Additional Context

I'm trying to fetch demographics data for multiple block groups in a pandas dataframe, and this error occurs for each record.

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated!

[praful-dodda]

Just realizing that Block groups are not currently available for the 2008-2012 ACS and earlier. If the error message is more clearer, that would have been helpful

[Ori-Katz-1]

Had the same problem for other functions, it seems that they didn't update some of the functions for 2023, instead of "census.acs5.state_county_blockgroup" you need to use census.acs5.get