Two county-level entities changed names and codes:

• Wade Hampton Census Area, Alaska, was renamed as Kusilvak Census Area and the county code changed from 270 to 158
• Shannon County, South Dakota, was renamed as Oglala Lakota County and the county code changed from 113 to 102. 

The county codes also changed for all the county subdivisions located in these county-level units.

Additional changes for county-level areas can be found by visiting the County Changes webpage.

The former Helena and McRae cities in Georgia have merged to form the new ‘Incorporated Place entity’, McRae-Helena city.  This new incorporated place has a FIPS code of 49100 and an ANSI code of 02770965.

The former Thomson city in Carlton County, Minnesota was merged into Carlton city, Minnesota.

Some areas of the nation will now have reduced comparability, primarily due to boundary changes. Changes are based on a variety of reasons including annexation, disincorporation, and geocoding updates. Some of the areas include:

• Petersburg borough and census subarea and Edna Bay in Alaska
• Magnet Cove, Arkansas
• Buchanan township, Iowa
• McArdle and Millard precincts in Nebraska
• Bridgewater, New York
• Brogan, Oregon
• South and central districts in West Virginia

For those entities that experienced changes, making comparisons between an entity in its 2014 form to its 2015 form should be done cautiously and with good understanding that the entity is substantially different in its 2015 form.