User:Innesw/sandbox/Australian Statistical Geography

The Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) is a hierarchical scheme of geographic statistical areas in Australia. The ASGS includes geographic structures created and maintained by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), as well as structures defined by other bodies but which the ABS may use for reporting statistical information.

The ABS structures within the ASGS include a Main Structure, which is a nested hierarchy of geographic areas ranging from very small units to the whole of Australia.

There are other ABS structures that are schemes with specific uses. They are built from units of the Main Structure, or smaller units in the same structure. Examples include the Indigenous Structure, a structure for urban areas, and the Remoteness Structure.

For all the ABS structures, all geographic units at a given level of the structure cover the whole of Australia without gaps or overlaps (ie: they are 'complete').

There are non-ABS structures included in the ASGS. These structures have geographical units whose boundaries are defined by bodies such as state governments, and that may or may not be geographically complete. Examples include electoral divisions, Postal Areas, and Suburbs and Localities. In some cases the boundaries of these units are approximated in the ASGS so they match boundaries in the Main Structure.

The current version of the ASGS is Version 3 of 2021.

ABS Structures

These structures within the ASGS are defined by the ABS.

	Abbreviation	Description	Built from	Complete
Main Structure
Mesh Block	MB	Mesh Blocks are the smallest defined areas in the ASGS, and reflect a single dominant land use where possible. All other ASGS areas are built up from mesh blocks. Residential and similar mesh blocks where possible contain between 30 and 60 dwellings. Non-residential mesh blocks (eg: commercial, parkland, transport, agriculture) generally have a zero or close-to-zero population count. The only statistics the ABS provides for mesh blocks are the total population and the total dwelling count.		Yes
Statistical Area 1	SA1	Populated SA1s generally have a population of 200 to 800 people, and are designed to maximise the spatial detail of census data without compromising confidentiality. Urban SA1s have a population density of more than 200 inhabitants per square kilometre (520/sq mi), or built infrastructure and other land uses surrounded by urban area. Rural SA1s have less than 200 inhabitants per square kilometre (520/sq mi), or contain other rural or natural areas, and are generally internally connected by road transport.	MB	Yes
Statistical Area 2	SA2	SA2s are designed to represent a single community. They generally have a population of between 3,000 and 25,000 - though populations may be smaller in sparse, geographically diverse areas, or larger in order to contain all of a large suburb or regional town. They are the smallest units for which the ABS reports non-census data, and are also the smallest areas that are named.	SA1	Yes
Statistical Area 3	SA3	SA3s are designed to represent meaningful regional areas, either the functional area around a town, or related suburbs clustered around urban commercial or transport hubs. They generally have populations between 30,000 and 130,000.	SA2	Yes
Statistical Area 4	SA4	SA4s represent labour markets, including areas around employment hubs within (or sub-divisions of) the larger capital cities, and the travel to work patterns around larger regional towns. Outer regional and remote SA4s represent aggregations of smaller labour markets. SA4s are the largest sub-state regions in the Main Structure, and are intended to be stable over time, to allow accurate time series in labour force data. They generally have populations of about 100,000 to 300,000 in regional areas, and between 300,000 and 500,000 in cities.	SA3	Yes
States and Territories	S/T	The States and Territories represent the legal entities, with the Other Territories (Jervis Bay Territory, and the Territories of Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Norfolk Island) included as a single area.	SA4	Yes
Australia	AUS	Statistics for the whole of the geographic definition of Australia are reported at this level.	S/T	Yes
Greater Capital City Statistical Area	GCCSA	GCCSAs represent the functional areas of each of the capital cities, as well as regions for the rest of each state or territory (except the ACT, which is a single GCCSA), and a region for the Other Territories.	SA4	Yes
Indigenous Structure
Indigenous Location	ILOC	ILOCs represent small indigenous communities who share location, language, traditional borders or Native Title. With a mimimum of about 90 people, they are designed to allow analysis of small areas without losing individual confidentiality. ILOCS may also represent larger areas with a more dispersed indigenous population.	SA1	Yes
Indigenous Area	IARE	IAREs are medium sized geographic areas that represent larger indigenous populations than ILOCs, and therefore allow the release of more detailed economic and population statistics.	ILOC	Yes
Indigenous Region	IREG	IREGs combine one or more IAREs, with boundaries based originally on the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission boundaries (no longer maintained). Jervis Bay and Norfolk Island are each represented by individual Indigenous Regions, while Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands are combined into a single IREG.	IARE	Yes
Urban Areas Structure (referred to in the ASGS as 'Significant Urban Areas, Urban Centres and Localities, Section of State')
Urban Centres and Localities	UCL	UCLs are areas of concentrated urban development, defined as combinations of SA1s that meet certain population-density or dwelling-density thresholds, or contain urban infrastructure adjacent to areas that meet the thresholds. They also generally have a population of at least 200 people. Urban SA1s may be (or be combined into) urban Localities if the combined population is between 200 and (usually) 999, or into Urban Centres if the combined population is 1,000 or more and together the SA1s share an urban indentity and a name. There is also a single UCL in each state or territory called 'Remainder of State/Territory (<S/T name>)' which combines all rural areas.	SA1	Yes
Section of State Range	SOSR	SOSR categorises UCLS based on their population size. There are 11 categories, ranging from UCLs with a population of 1 million or more, down to UCLS with 499 or less, and a category containing the Remainder of State/Territory UCLs.	UCL	Yes
Section of State	SOS	SOS categorises UCLS based on their UCL class (Urban Centre or Locality) and population size. There are only 4 categories: Major Urban - Urban Centres with population 100,000 or more Other Urban - Urban Centres with population 99,999 or less Bounded Locality - all UCL Localities Rural Balance - the Remainder of State/Territory UCLs.	UCL	Yes
Significant Urban Areas	SUA	SUAs are Urban Centres (or combinations of Urban Centres) that contain a population of 10,000 or more. SUAs may cross state and territory boundaries, and those that are combinations of Urban Centres are named after either those centres or have a region name. All SA2s are either included in an SUA, or combined into a Not in any Significant Urban Area region for each state and territory.	SA2	Yes
Remoteness Structure
Remoteness Structure	RA	The Remoteness Structure defines Remoteness Areas with various classes of remoteness for the whole of Australia. The five defined remoteness classes are: Major Cities, Inner Regional, Outer Regional, Remote and Very Remote.	SA1	Yes

Non-ABS Structures

These structures are defined by bodies other than the ABS, though the ABS commits to providing a range of statistics for them. Where the legal or other boundaries of the geographical units within these structures don't exactly match mesh blocks boundaries, the ABS uses mesh block boundaries to approximate them, therefore the ASGS units should only be used for statistical purposes.

	Abbrreviation	Description	Built from	Complete
Local Government Areas	LGA	LGAs are defined by state or territory governments. Areas outside incorporated local government bodies are consolidated into a single region in each state or territory.	MB	Yes
Postal Areas	POA	ASGS POAs are mesh block approximations of the postcode areas used by Australia Post (though Australia Post does not release detailed boundaries for its postcodes). Not all geographic postcodes have equivalent Postal Areas.	MB	Yes
Suburbs and Localities	SAL	ASGS SALs are mesh block approximations of the suburbs (in larger urban areas) and localities (outside these areas) which are defined and named by state & territory goverments. Not all legally designated suburbs & localities have an equivalent SAL in the ASGS. SALs were known as State Suburbs in the ASGS prior to the 2021 census.}}	MB	Yes
State Electoral Divisions	SED	SEDs are mesh block approximations of state electoral districts defined by state or territory electoral commissions. For Victoria and Western Australia, lower house SEDs are named and coded with the upper house region they are in. For Tasmania, SEDs are defined for each combination of lower house region and upper house region that occurs.	MB	Yes
Commonwealth Electoral Divisions	CED	CEDs are mesh block approximations of Federal electoral divisions as defined by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). The Other Territories are included in electoral divisions in states or territories that the AEC allocates them to.	MB	Yes
Tourism Regions	TR	ASGS TRs are approximations of the Tourist Regions defined by Tourism Research Australia (TRA).	SA2	No
Destination Zones	DZN	DZNs are sub-divisions of SA2s designed for the analysis of Place of Work data from the census, and of commuting patterns. Although built from whole mesh blocks, and combined into SA2s, they do not necessarily align with SA1s.	MB	Yes
Australian Drainage Divisions	ADD	ADDs are mesh block approximations of the drainage divisons defined the the Bureau of Meteorology. Mesh blocks are allocated to ADDs based on largest area contribution, not population. There is a single ADD for the offshore Other Territories.	MB	Yes

Editions

The ASGS was introduced by the ABS in 2011 as a replacement for the Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC).

New editions essentially coincide with the 5-yearly ABS censuses, though boundary changes made to Non-ABS structures may be updated as often as annually.

The significant changes for Edition 2 (2016) included:

• addition of a boundary and code for the whole of Australia, and the inclusion of Norfolk Island
• Non-ABS structures are now approximated by mesh blocks

The significant changes for Edition 3 (2021) included:

• introduction of Destination Zones to the Non-ABS structures
• removal of Natural Resource Management Regions
• electoral divisions, both commonwealth and state, are now built from mesh blocks
• the previous State Suburbs (SSCs) are now called Suburbs and Localities (SALs)