LGA boundary changes in NSW

Question

In the past 2 years (and still ongoing in some cases), some local councils in NSW have amalgamated and therefore the "county" boundaries of these Local Government Areas (LGAs) has changed. In Sydney we've reduced down from 38 to 30 councils which makes for some significant movement.

Just wondering how feasible it would be to update these boundaries.

Comments

I believe they usually take the data from OpenStreetMap ( https://www.openstreetmap.org ). Can you check whether these boundary changes have been reflected there? I believe the LGA boundaries in NSW are shown as pink/purple dot-dash lines.

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For most countries, yes. In general, we need access to freely usable map data for the new situation. Checking if OSM is updated is one way. Pointing out some other source of usable map data (from the local government, for instance) is also useful.

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Greater Taree, Gloucester and Great Lakes have merged into one and the new combined County is named Mid Coast. This has been updates on OSM some time ago

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So digging around on OSM has revealed that some clever clogs has updated the maps, but I'm not sure of the best way to communicate these changes, nor the right people to send the info too. For instance, I found this (https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2162244) which is very useful, but will this be enough for project-gc to use? I'm happy to compile a list of changes - which email address/forum should I direct this info to?

Answer 1

There is a new county map shown in wikipedia https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Sydney_councils.png

These boundaries are also shown in OSM

The changes with the map of Project-gc are

Pittwater, Warringah and Manly have merged into Northern Beaches

Auburn, Holroyd and Parrmatta have merged and boundary changes into Cumberland and City of Parramatta

Parts of The Hills Shire and Hornsby Shire have moved to City of Parramatta

Ashfield and Leichhardt are merged into Inner West

Canterbury and Marrickville are merged into Canterbury-Bankstown

Botany Bay and Rockdale are merged into Bayside

Hurstville and Kogarah are merged into Georges River

I will pass these changes on to PGC-HQ so action on this can be taken

Comments

There are also some further changes to the rest of New South Wales that should probably be included in this update:

NSW Base Map
https://data.nsw.gov.au/data/dataset/lpi-web-services-nsw-base-map

Armidale Regional Council
The merger of Armidale Dumaresq and Guyra Shire councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6165969

Bayside Council
The merger of City of Botany Bay and Rockdale City councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/7038238

Canterbury-Bankstown Council
The merger of Bankstown City and Canterbury City councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2162244

Central Coast Council
The merger of Gosford City and Wyong Shire councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6195207

City of Parramatta Council
The merger of Parramatta City*, The Hills Shire*, Auburn City*, Holroyd City* and Hornsby Shire* councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6217262

Cumberland Council
The merger of Parramatta City*, Auburn City* and Holroyd City* councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6210859

Dubbo Regional Council
The merger of Dubbo City and Wellington councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6268489

Edward River Council
The merger of Conargo Shire and Deniliquin councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6139012

Federation Council
The merger of Corowa Shire and Urana Shire councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6232188

Georges River Council
The merger of Hurstville City and Kogarah City councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6205809

Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council
The merger of Cootamundra Shire and Gundagai Shire councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6247073

Hilltops Council
The merger of Boorowa, Harden Shire and Young Shire councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6256597

Inner West Council
The merger of Ashfield, Leichhardt Municipal and Marrickville councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1251053

Mid-Coast Council
The merger of Gloucester Shire, Great Lakes and Greater Taree City councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6249291

Murray River Council
The merger of Murray Shire and Wakool Shire councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6134295

Murrumbidgee Council
The merger of Jerilderie Shire and Murrumbidgee Shire councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6231900

Northern Beaches Council
The merger of Manly, Pittwater and Warringah councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2978550

Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council
The merger of Palerang and Queanbeyan City councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6137309

Snowy Monaro Regional Council
The merger of Bombala, Cooma-Monaro Shire and Snowy River Shire councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6239422

Snowy Valleys Council
The merger of Tumbarumba Shire and Tumut Shire councils
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6239423

Thanks for passing this info on.

Answer 2

After more investigation it turns out that PGC can not using the OSM  boundary data adm level 6 for NSW because this data is not available for the whole country. Instead PGC has used county data for Australia is from here:

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/1259.0.30.001July%202011?OpenDocument

There are currently no further updates available yet

Comments

Thanks vogelbird, I'll keep my eyes out on the ABS data updates, maybe even prod them a little further too, to see if we can get the changes rolled out. Maybe they're waiting until all the court cases are finalised.

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I didn't expect such a good answer from the ABS, but I got a great one!

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Good morning,

Thank you for your email. The ASGC was replaced by the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) as the new geographical framework in July 2011.

The ASGS addresses some of the shortcoming of the ASGC in that:
•    it brings all the geographic regions used by the ABS into the one framework
•    it is more stable, the ABS structures will be remain stable between Census; unlike the ASGC regions which were reviewed annually
•    the regions at each level of the ASGS ABS structures are more consistent in population size
•    the regions at each level of the ASGS ABS structures are optimised for the statistical data to be released for them
•    the Main Structure Statistical Area (SA) units are based on the idea of a functional area and built around whole official gazetted localities, which will result in more meaningful regions
•    it is based on Mesh Blocks and can therefore support more accurate statistics for a range of commonly used administrative regions such as Postcodes and electoral divisions.

The 2016 digital boundaries can be found under the 'Downloads' tab of each volume of the ASGS publication (http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310114.nsf/home/ABS+Geography+Publications#DigitalGIS) (apart from Volume 5: Remoteness Structure which is due for release in early 2018). For quick reference the Local Government Area (LGA) boundaries can be found here (http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/1270.0.55.003July 2017?OpenDocument). To quickly view these boundaries you can use our online mapping tool ABS Maps (http://stat.abs.gov.au/itt/r.jsp?ABSMaps).

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Hope this is helpful data.

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The info was very helpfull and the data is being at the moment although it might take some time.