1259.0.30.001 - Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) Digital Boundaries (Intercensal), Australia, July 2010  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 16/07/2010   
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PRODUCT BRIEF

The Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) is a hierarchical classification system of geographical areas and consists of a number of interrelated structures. It provides a common framework of statistical geography and enables the production of statistics which are comparable and can be spatially integrated.

This product, Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) Digital Boundaries, Australia 2010 (cat. no. 1259.0.30.001), contains the digital boundaries current for the ASGC Edition 2010 (date of effect 1 July 2010). The digital boundaries are presented in MapInfo Interchange Format and ESRI Shapefile Format, and are based on the datum GDA94.

The ASGC covers Geographic Australia including the external territories of Cocos (Keeling) Islands & Christmas Island, but excluding all other external territories.

The product includes boundaries of Local Government Areas, Statistical Local Areas, Statistical Divisions, Statistical Subdivisions, States, Statistical Districts, Major Statistical Regions, Statistical Regions and Statistical Region Sectors, current at 1 July 2010. The digital boundaries are available only at one level of detail. These boundaries are intended for import and display in GIS and desktop mapping packages and, because of the high level of detail, they are not suitable for use in 'low-end' mapping packages such as those included in Excel.

Note that it is vitally important to understand which edition of the ASGC has been applied to the statistical data which you are analysing. ABS data are generally disseminated on either the ASGC edition used for the collection and dissemination of Census data (2006) or the edition which was current when data was being collected.


Operating Environment

The digital boundary files are in MapInfo Interchange Format (.MID, .MIF) and ESRI Shapefile (.shp) format. MapInfo Interchange Format can be imported directly into MapInfo and other common Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or desktop mapping packages. The .MID .MIF files are text format and can be edited and manipulated for import to less common GIS and CAD systems.

The .MID .MIF files cannot be used directly with viewing tools such as MapInfo ProViewer.

The digital boundary files have the datum specified as 116 (GDA94). Users of MapInfo 6.0 or later are able to load data sets based on GDA94 directly, without transformation. Earlier versions of MapInfo cannot interpret GDA94 correctly and there may be alignment problems between data sets based on this datum and other earlier datums.


File Nomenclature

Each file name has the format <file type><10><a><AUST> where:

      <file type> represents the type of boundaries in each file
          SLA = Statistical Local Area
          SSD = Statistical Subdivision
          SD = Statistical Division
          STE = State
          SDIST = Statistical District
          LGA = Local Government Area
          SRS = Statistical Region Sector
          SR = Statistical Region
          MSR = Major Statistical Region

      <10> represents 2010 the year of the Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) Edition

      <a> indicates the data is at a high level of detail i.e. "all points" data

      <AUST> indicates the data covers all of Australia as defined in ABS publication Catalogue Number 1216.0

Within the files, the States/Territories are identified by unique one digit codes.

Code S/T

1 New South Wales
2 Victoria
3 Queensland
4 South Australia
5 Western Australia
6 Tasmania
7 Northern Territory
8 Australian Capital Territory
9 Other Territories




File Attributes

All column headers show spatial unit type, spatial unit attribute and year of edition.

File Type Attributes Comments

SLA STATE_CODE_2010 1 digit State/Territory code
SLA_MAINCODE_2010 9 digit Main Structure code
SLA_NAME_2010
SLA_5DIGITCODE_2010 5 digit SLA code
SLA_REGIONCODE_2010 9 digit SLA Region code
SSD STATE_CODE_2010 1 digit State/Territory code
SSD_CODE_2010 5 digit Main Structure code
SSD_NAME_2010
SD STATE_CODE_2010 1 digit State/Territory code
SD_CODE_2010 3 digit State/Territory code
SD_NAME_2010
STE STATE_CODE_2010 1 digit State/Territory code
STATE_NAME_2010
LGA STATE_CODE_2010 1 digit State/Territory code
LGA_CODE_2010 5 digit Local Government Area Structure code
LGA_NAME_2010
SDIST SDIST_CODE_2010 4 digit Statistical District Structure code
SDIST_NAME_2010
SRS STATE_CODE_2010 1 digit State/Territory code
SRS_CODE_2010 5 digit Statistical Region Structure code
SRS_NAME_2010
SR STATE_CODE_2010 1 digit State/Territory code
SR_CODE_2010 4 digit Statistical Region Structure code
SR_NAME_2010
MSR STATE_CODE_2010 1 digit State/Territory code
MSR_CODE_2010 2 digit Statistical Region Structure code
MSR_NAME_2010




Data Quality

The ASGC Edition 2010 digital boundaries are based upon the SLA boundaries of the ASGC Edition 2010. The higher level spatial units were aggregated from ASGC Edition 2010 SLA level.

While the topological consistency of the data can be regarded as high there may be very small errors such as gaps, overlaps and bow-ties.


Metadata

Refer to the Explanatory Notes for the Metadata Proforma in this product.


Reference

Information regarding the underlying concepts of the Australian Standard Geographical Classification and its Structures may be found in the ABS publication Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) 2010 (cat. no. 1216.0). A publication is produced for each edition of the ASGC and the publication for the ASGC Edition 2010 will be available from 16 September 2010.

Copyright Commonwealth of Australia administered by the ABS.

For more information on statistical geography please view the ABS Geography portal.

For enquiries please contact the ABS Geography Section, see details below.

ABS Geography Section

Email: geography@abs.gov.au