The Kern Council of Governments, through an agreement with the California State Department of Finance, Demographic Research Unit, functions as the Affiliate State Census Data Center for the Kern region. Kern COG maintains a repository for current and past Census data. The executive director acts as the Census Bureau's "key person" for Census-related activity. Kern COG is also the official source of demographic data for the County of Kern and its various departments.

Information is displayed on the Kern COG web site, and staff responds to more than 1,500 inquiries annually for Census and other information from private businesses, other government agencies and the general public. While many of these requests are routine, such as county population numbers, others involve detailed analysis of existing data and require extensive data compilation and mapping.

Kern COG staff also produces detailed maps that include Census data layers used for regional demographic analysis.

Year 2000 population and housing summaries are from the 2000 Census of Population and Housing. Estimates and projections are derived from California Department of Finance official estimates and projections.