Purpose
The Statistical District (S Dist) Structure maintains a list of selected, significant, predominantly urban areas in Australia which are not located within a Capital City SD (see chapter 2). Statistical Districts enable comparable statistics to be produced about these selected urban areas. In the main, the structure is used to report intercensal population estimates.
Statistical Districts are maintained as a separate structure from the Main Structure because:
- the total area of Statistical Districts does not cover the whole of Australia; and
- some Statistical Districts straddle S/T boundaries (e.g. the Gold Coast-Tweed Statistical District lies partly in Queensland and partly in New South Wales).
The structure
The Statistical District Structure has four levels of hierarchy in census years, comprising in ascending order: CDs–SLAs–SSDs–Statistical Districts. In non-census years, with CDs undefined, it has only three levels of hierarchy (see diagram 3, chapter 1).
In this structure, CDs, SLAs and SSDs are confined to those which fall within Statistical Districts. The spatial units relate to each other through aggregation or disaggregation. For example, CDs aggregate to SLAs while SLAs are disaggregates of SSDs. The spatial units within each level of the Statistical District Structure do not collectively cover the whole of Australia.
Table
The current Statistical District Structure, down to SLA level, is shown in the following table in chapter 12 of this manual:
| Statistical District Structure
(showing three hierarchical levels: S Dist–SSD–SLA) | |
| S Dist | SSD | SLA | Name | |
| | |
| 1006 | | | WOLLONGONG (New South Wales) | |
| | 05 | | Wollongong | |
| | | 4400 | Kiama (A) | |
| | | 6900 | Shellharbour (C) | |
| | | 8450 | Wollongong (C) | |
| | |