• Summary
• Downloads
• Explanatory Notes
• Related Information
• Past Releases

THE 2015 UPDATE OF ASGS NON-ABS STRUCTURES

This product releases updates to the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Non-ABS Structure regions that have changed since the 1 July 2014. Changes have occurred in the Tourism Regions (TR). There have been no changes to the Local Government Areas (LGAs) however an updated edition of the 2015 LGAs is provided in this product.

The ASGS brings all the regions for which the ABS publishes statistics within the one framework and has been in use for the collection and dissemination of geographically classified statistics since 1 July 2011. It is the framework for understanding and interpreting the geographical context of statistics published by the ABS. The ABS also encourages the use of the ASGS by other organisations to improve the comparability and usefulness of statistics generally.

The Non-ABS Structures of the ASGS bring together those regions which are not defined by the ABS, but which are supported by the ABS. They generally represent administrative regions and are approximated by Mesh Block (MB), Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) or Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2).

As the Non-ABS Structures represent regions that are subject to ongoing change, this update to the Non-ABS Structures contains revised digital boundaries, codes and labels for regions that have changed since the last edition. Most of the individual structures are only updated where significant change has occurred in the past year. LGAs however, are an exception and are released annually regardless if there has been change or not.

Detailed information about Non-ABS Structures including the publication, 2011 digital boundaries and allocation tables are in the 2011 edition of this publication:

Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS): Volume 3 - Non ABS Structures, July 2011 (cat no. 1270.0.55.003)


LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS (LGA)

Local Government Areas (LGAs) are an ABS approximation of officially gazetted LGAs as defined by each State and Territory (S/T) local government departments.

ABS approximated LGAs cover incorporated areas of Australia. Incorporated areas are legally designated parts of S/T over which incorporated local governing bodies have responsibility. There are parts of Australia not administered by incorporated bodies. These regions are identified as 'Unincorporated' in the ABS LGA structure. In this set of LGA digital boundaries 'Unincorporated' areas, which represent actual places on the ground, are represented as spatial records. Previous LGA editions for 2011 and 2012 did not contain spatial objects in their respective digital boundaries for all Unincorporated areas.

In all States and the Northern Territory each incorporated area has an official status. The various LGA status types currently in use are:

• New South Wales: Cities (C) and Areas (A)
• Victoria: Cities (C), Rural Cities (RC), Boroughs (B) and Shires (S)
• Queensland: Cities (C), Shires (S), Towns (T) and Regional Councils (R)
• South Australia: Cities (C), Rural Cities (RC), Municipalities/Municipal Councils (M), District Councils (DC), Regional Councils (RegC), Towns (T) and Aboriginal Councils (AC)
• Western Australia: Cities (C), Towns (T) and Shires (S)
• Tasmania: Cities (C) and Municipalities (M)
• Northern Territory: Cities (C), Towns (T), Municipalities (M), Shires (S) and Regional Councils (R).