1252.0.55.001 - National Localities Index, Australia, Jul 2007 Final  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 20/07/2007  Ceased
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INTRODUCTION


GEOGRAPHIC CODES FOR ADDRESSES

The National Localities Index (NLI) has been developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to assist users to enhance the usefulness of their address based data by assigning Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) Main Structure codes.

The ASGC is an ABS classification which provides a hierarchy of geographic area codes used to classify a wide range of social and economic data.

The NLI also includes postcodes as these are a feature of address information. Postcodes for Localities are allocated by Australia Post. New and updated postcode information is incorporated into the Localities Index of the NLI on a regular basis.

The geographic codes available from the NLI are:
  • Main Structure codes and names of the ASGC edition current at its release.
  • Australia Post postcodes.

PURPOSE OF THE NLI

The NLI is used within the ABS to assign geographic codes to statistical units in several collections including Health and Vitals and the Census of Population and Housing. It is also used by many clients and government agencies to code their own address information to the geographical units of the ASGC.

Date of effect

The NLI reflects the codes and names of the ASGC edition current at its release. Each edition of the ASGC becomes effective on 1 July of the year in question.

LOCALITIES AND STREETS

The NLI contains information about Localities across Australia and consists of two parts:
  • a Localities Index; which is linked to
  • a Streets Sub-Index.

Definition of Locality

In order to keep the NLI as comprehensive as possible, the definition of ‘Locality’ has been made very broad. A Locality is defined as the name of a place where people live or work - or say they live or work.

A Locality may be treated as if it has wider boundaries than those which have been officially gazetted.

A Locality may exist across more than one ASGC area. In these instances, the Locality is described as being ‘split’. Split Localities are linked to the Streets Sub-Index where each street and its street number range is coded to its respective ASGC code.