Aboriginal Communities and Town Reserves Snapshot 2017

A 2017 snapshot of discrete Aboriginal communities and town reserves in Western Australia, compiled by the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage. The dataset defines communities as geographic locations with predominantly Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander residents and community-managed housing. Further updates to this dataset are not currently planned.

Use Cases

• Map community locations and cadastral boundaries for spatial planning and infrastructure analysis.
• Analyze demographic patterns by identifying areas with a majority Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander resident population.
• Support cultural heritage and land management studies using the defined community and reserve boundaries.

Strengths

• Data is provided by the authoritative state Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage.
• Offers multiple machine-readable geospatial formats including GeoJSON, SHP, and GeoPackage.

Limitations

• Data is a static snapshot from 2017 and may not reflect current community status or boundaries.
• No row count, column details, or sample data are available to assess dataset scale and structure.

Provenance

Source

Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage, Western Australia.

Collection Method

Spatial data compilation defining discrete communities by legal and demographic criteria.

Time Range

Snapshot as of 2017.

Freshness

Static snapshot; last metadata update was 2026-03 24 but the underlying data is from 2017.

Geography

Western Australia, focusing on Aboriginal communities and town reserves.