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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 2008 (cat. no. 1259.0.30.001), contains the digital boundaries current for the ASGC Edition 2008 (date of effect 1 July 2008). 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 2008. 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 and Lotus 123.
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 & 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 desk-top 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><08><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
<08> represents 2008 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 as follows:
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.
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| File Type | Attributes | Comments |
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| SLA | STATE_CODE_2008 | 1 digit State/Territory code |
 | SLA_MAINCODE_2008 | 9 digit Main Structure code |
 | SLA_NAME_2008 |  |
 | SLA_5DIGITCODE_2008 | 5 digit SLA code |
 | SLA_REGIONCODE_2008 | 9 digit SLA Region code |
 |  |  |
| SSD | STATE_CODE_2008 | 1 digit State/Territory code |
 | SSD_CODE_2008 | 5 digit Main Structure code |
 | SSD_NAME_2008 |  |
 |  |  |
| SD | STATE_CODE_2008 | 1 digit State/Territory code |
 | SD_CODE_2008 | 3 digit Main Structure code |
 | SD_NAME_2008 |  |
 |  |  |
| STE | STATE_CODE_2008 | 1 digit State/Territory code |
 | STATE_NAME_2008 |  |
 |  |  |
| LGA | STATE_CODE_2008 | 1 digit State/Territory code |
 | LGA_CODE_2008 | 5 digit Local Government Area Structure code |
 | LGA_NAME_2008 |  |
 |  |  |
| SDIST | SDIST_CODE_2008 | 4 digit Statistical District Structure code |
 | SDIST_NAME_2008 |  |
 |  |  |
| SRS | STATE_CODE_2008 | 1 digit State/Territory code |
 | SRS_CODE_2008 | 5 digit Statistical Region Structure code |
 | SRS_NAME_2008 |  |
 |  |  |
| SR | STATE_CODE_2008 | 1 digit State/Territory code |
 | SR_CODE_2008 | 4 digit Statistical Region Structure code |
 | SR_NAME_2008 |  |
 |  |  |
| MSR | STATE_CODE_2008 | 1 digit State/Territory code |
 | MSR_CODE_2008 | 2 digit Statistical Region Structure code |
 | MSR_NAME_2008 |  |
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Data Quality
The ASGC Edition 2008 digital boundaries are based upon the SLA boundaries of the ASGC Edition 2008. The higher level spatial units were aggregated from ASGC Edition 2008 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) 2008 (cat. no. 1216.0). A publication is produced for each edition of the ASGC and the publication for the ASGC Edition 2008 will be available from the 26 September 2008.
For enquiries please contact the ABS Geography Section, see details below.
ABS Geography Section
Email: geography@abs.gov.au |
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