NAEUP: A Construct-Harmonized Metropolitan Panel of Ethnic Group Population Dynamics for 150 United States and Canadian Metropolitan Areas, 2001–2022

Comparative research on the urban geography of ethnic groups in North America is hampered by the incompatibility of the United States and Canadian statistical systems: different concepts (race and detailed origin versus visible minority), different geographies, and different release calendars. This Data Descriptor presents NAEUP, a metropolitan area panel of ethnic group population counts and shares for 150 metropolitan areas: 109 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (2022 population ≥ 500,000) and all 41 Canadian Census Metropolitan Areas. The U.S. series comprises seven American Community Survey 5-year waves (2006–2010 to 2018–2022) and the Canadian series comprises five census and National Household Survey waves (2001–2021); because no single grid spans 2001–2022, four analytical grids are defined, including a joint grid aligned at 2011, 2016, and 2021. South Asian, Chinese, and Black populations are construct-harmonized across the border, operationally aligned but not measurement-equivalent, and are distributed alongside country-specific series (Hispanic, non-Hispanic White; Filipino, Latin American, Arab, total visible minority). Every value is a published figure retrieved programmatically from the source agency; nothing is estimated or imputed, and the fully rerunnable acquisition scripts are deposited with the data (CSV and GeoJSON). Version 1.1 adds ACS margins of error, row-level metadata (source, universe, boundary vintage, window overlap, comparability tier, methodological breaks), a data dictionary, a source crosswalk, and a boundary change log; an exhaustive, separately coded validation reproduced all 6218 published cells. An illustrative spatial Markov analysis, with permutation inference and sensitivity checks, shows how the panel supports research on distribution dynamics. The database supports research in ethnic geography, migration studies, regional science, and spatial distribution dynamics.