Microproduct Data GuideBeginner

ARC Appalachian Counties

The Appalachian Regional Commission's maintained county membership list for building regional comparison and eligibility tools.

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At a Glance

Difficulty
Beginner — comfortable for a first prototype
Size
Tiny · ≤0.001 GB
Formats
HTML, XLSX
Access
Download
API Key
Not Required
Provider
Appalachian Regional Commission
Updates
Annual
Last Verified
Sep 28, 2026
Source Type
Government Source
Data Terms
ARC-produced material is public domain; cite ARC and check linked third-party materials separately.
  • Python Syntax Checked
  • Runnable Notebook

From Source to Product Signal

Test a Product Idea in Four Steps

ARC maintains a public county list and notes fiscal-year exceptions, including Schoharie County for FY 2026. Start with Alabama's 37 named counties. Names alone do not give a county FIPS code or prove grant eligibility.

1

Check the Setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • An internet connection
  • The requests Python package
2

Access the Data

  1. 1.Read the official county list and its fiscal-year notes.
  2. 2.Fetch the Alabama row from the ARC-maintained page.
  3. 3.Join to an authoritative FIPS table before a county-level analysis.
Open Official Source
3

Run the Python Example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install requests

import html
import re
import requests

url = "https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-counties-served-by-arc/"
response = requests.get(url, timeout=20)
response.raise_for_status()
match = re.search(
    r'<strong><a href="https://www.arc.gov/alabama/">Alabama</a>.*?</strong>(.*?)</p>',
    response.text, re.S,
)
if not match:
    raise ValueError("ARC Alabama county list not found")
names = html.unescape(re.sub(r"<[^>]+>", "", match.group(1))).strip()
print(names[:160])
4

Test a Useful Signal

Compare ARC County Membership

Show which sampled counties are within the ARC region while retaining the fiscal-year caveat.

  1. 01Extract county names for one state from the ARC list.
  2. 02Resolve names to state-qualified county FIPS identifiers.
  3. 03Explain why ARC membership does not by itself establish current grant eligibility.

Related Datasets

Dataset Details

Appalachian Regional Commission is a government source. Last verified 2026-09-28. Temporal coverage: current ARC county membership; check the fiscal-year caveats.

Data Types

Tabular

Formats

HTMLXLSX

Provider

Appalachian Regional Commission

Data Terms

ARC-produced material is public domain; cite ARC and check linked third-party materials separately.

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