How to use, share, and cite the The U.S. Defense Economy Dashboard dataset and dashboard.
The data, classifications, and visualizations published on this site are the result of original research by Punto Labs and New Localism Associates. We are publishing them openly because we believe the defense economy is poorly understood at the regional level, and that local leaders, journalists, and researchers benefit from a transparent view of where federal defense activity actually concentrates.
You are welcome to use the data, charts, and rankings on this site for the following purposes, free of charge and without prior permission:
If you reference data or analysis from this site, please cite as:
For specific charts or figures, a link back to the relevant section of the dashboard is appreciated.
Commercial use of the underlying dataset — including but not limited to integration into paid products, reselling, redistribution as part of a commercial database, or use in proprietary client deliverables — requires a separate written agreement. Please contact us to discuss licensing.
Unless otherwise noted, the dataset and analysis on this site are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). This means you are free to share and adapt the material for non-commercial purposes, as long as you provide appropriate attribution.
This dashboard combines data from USASpending.gov, the SBIR/STTR awards database, the Department of Defense's Base Structure Report, public directories of federal labs, and a curated set of additional official sources. Allocations represent annual averages across fiscal years 2024 and 2025. Where individual contracts could not be matched to a single metropolitan area, we used a geocoding workflow described in our methodology.
Defense activity is inherently difficult to track at the asset level, and some categories (in particular, military bases and innovation intermediaries) do not have publicly available USD allocations. Where this is the case, we report rankings by number of assets rather than dollar value, and label those tables accordingly. Readers are encouraged to consult the methodology before drawing conclusions from any single ranking.
This dataset and dashboard are provided as is, without warranty of any kind. While we have invested significant effort in classifying, cleaning, and validating the underlying data, defense contracting records are noisy and incomplete by nature. We make no claim that the rankings on this site are exhaustive or free of error, and we disclaim liability for any decision made on the basis of this analysis. Users are encouraged to verify specific figures against original sources before relying on them for material decisions.
This site does not collect personal information from visitors beyond standard server logs (IP address, browser type, requested URL). We do not use third-party tracking or advertising cookies. Aggregate usage statistics may be used to improve the dashboard.
For questions about the data, methodology, licensing, or to report errors, please reach us at hello@puntodata.com.