The TIGER/Line shapefiles and related database files (.dbf) are an extract of selected geographic and cartographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) System (MTS). The MTS represents a seamless national file with no overlaps or gaps between parts, however, each TIGER/Line shapefile is designed to stand alone as an independent data set, or they can be combined to cover the entire nation.

The Census Bureau includes landmarks in the MTS for locating special features and to help enumerators during field operations. Some of the more common landmark types include airports, cemeteries, parks, schools, and churches and other religious institutions. The Census Bureau adds landmark features to MTS on an as-needed basis and does not ensure that all instances of a particular feature are included. The presence or absence of a landmark such as a hospital or prison does not mean that the living quarters associated with that landmark were geocoded to that census tabulation block or excluded from the census enumeration. The Area Landmark shapefile does not include military installations or water bodies because they appear in their own separate shapefiles, mil.shp and areawater.shp respectively.