CARTLIB is a digital cartographic library of computer files of standard Census boundaries. Each CARTLIB file includes geostatistical area boundaries and major hydrographic features.

CARTLIB files can be used with the 1986 Census of Population and Housing data from the User Summary Tape (UST) series, or other data available at subprovincial standard census geographic area levels. Geostatistical areas in CARTLIB are associated with the Standard Geographic Classification (SGC) codes that are used to reference all census data available from Statistics Canada.

The 1986 Street Index links address ranges to census enumeration area (EA), census tract (CT), census subdivision (CSD), and federal electoral district (FED) levels of the census geographic hierarchy. Street indexes generally cover urban centres having 50,000 or more in population and are available for 13 census agglomerations (CAs) and 25 census metropolitan areas (CMAs), of which a portion only may be covered.

The data contained in each Street Index consist of street data and geographic data. The former include street name, type, direction, odd and even address ranges. The latter include census enumeration area, census tract, census division, census subdivision, and federal electoral district.

Street data were obtained from area master files (AMF) and include all AMF revisions as of January 1, 1986. Geographic data were obtained from the census geographic master file (CGMF), and include standard geographic classification (SGC) code values in all cases.